It’s almost 6:30. I rush to get home. I find a comfortable corner of my house, open my computer, and click a link that opens a new space – a window that connects me straight to ‘Habaita’.
This connection no longer runs through Wi-Fi. It runs through my veins, my memories, my longing.

It’s time for my Citizen Café Hebrew class.

Hebrew was always around me, but it was never fully mine. It lived in prayers, in songs, in other people’s mouths. I understood pieces, but never enough to feel confident or complete. Hearing someone speak Hebrew stirred something physical in me – perhaps a collective memory of my grandparents, or my mother. Hebrew has always felt inherited, half-known, interrupted. A language you grow up hearing but never quite own.

A year ago, I decided it was time to change that feeling and return to Hebrew – a language that meant far more than communication.

Learning Hebrew this way – online, from my living room – felt ironic at first. How could a language so deeply tied to land, history, and identity be taught through a screen? But very quickly, I realized I wasn’t entering just a class. I was entering a community. Faces from different cities and countries appeared on my screen, each carrying their own stories, accents, hesitations, and hopes. We were separated by geography, yet united by something ancient and shared.

This feeling made me realize that the name Citizen Café couldn’t be more accurate. Showing up to “class” to “meet” my new friends felt exactly like meeting at a café – chill, warm, and cozy. We all arrived as strangers, each longing to claim a piece of our heritage, from different corners of the world.

Very quickly, just like in a real classroom, our personalities began to shine through. Each of us, at our own pace, grew more comfortable. Inside jokes became part of our routine. Making mistakes, mispronouncing words, or forgetting what we had just learned was not only accepted – it was expected. And somehow, that made everything feel safe.

The first time I was asked to repeat a new sentence in Hebrew – out loud, and not on mute – I felt a rush of fear mixed with excitement. My heart raced as I formed the sounds, unsure if they would come out right. But something unexpected happened. I recognized words. Not all of them, but enough. Familiar roots, sounds I had heard my whole life, suddenly made sense. With each class, the mora felt less like a mystery and more like a guide, and slowly, Hebrew stopped sounding like noise and started sounding like meaning. I could follow more, understand more, even read more. What once felt distant and intimidating was becoming recognizable, almost friendly: like meeting a part of myself I had always known, but was finally getting to know by name.

The learning process has been kef, not always easy, but always meaningful. Still, this experience has become so much more than relearning Hebrew. After October 7th, living in the diaspora began to feel almost like a betrayal. My homeland is being torn apart from within, and I am so far away – watching, worrying, feeling helpless.

There are many ways to support, to show up, to respond to the unthinkable. But for me, learning Hebrew became a need. A lifeline. A way to be physically distant yet emotionally closer to the people in Israel. Each new word, each sentence spoken out loud, felt like an act of connection. Proof that even from afar, I was still part of the story.

Meeting others who live in the diaspora like me, and connecting with them, has been unexpectedly healing. Forming new friendships, chatting outside of class, even making plans to see one another someday, has reinforced something deeply familiar and deeply needed: the idea of one people. Despite the distance, the different accents and backgrounds, there is a shared thread that binds us. Through these connections, Hebrew stopped being just a language I was learning and became a bridge between places, between stories, and between us.

In less than a year, my Hebrew has improved far beyond what I ever expected, but the true transformation goes much deeper. I have gained confidence, built friendships, and learned from Jews of different ages and backgrounds, each navigating what it means to be Jewish in today’s challenging world. Through shared words, stories, and laughter, I feel less distant from Israel than I did a year ago, and more connected to Am Yisrael than ever before. What began as a class has become a reminder that language can be home, community can cross borders, and belonging does not depend on geography – it lives in connection.