I could hear Eli’s excited voice echoing through the telephone at the communications room known as “the kesher” at settlement Shitim.

“When you gonna visit again?” he asked.

Eli called! Eli called! Could it mean I finally get an Israeli boyfriend? That was all I could think about.

No Israeli had I ever met for the first time had expressed an interest to see me again. I had given numbers of the bases I would be at or my weekend place on Kibbutz Sufa and would never hear from them again. It seemed that whenever an Israeli male heard my American accent, he was immediately drawn to his fatuation of America – the city of opportunity where streets were paved with “gold” and not the same “gold” as in the pioneering song, “Jerusalem of Gold” by Naomi Shemer.

My fascination with Israeli male soldiers continued from the summer of 1989 when I volunteered on my aunt’s kibbutz. Eli offered a way “into” this fascination. Emotional freedom. Even though he wasn’t the most attractive looking man,  he still had the dark hair and dark eyes combo Israeli soldiers were famous for. That call into the base asking for me that night validated I was special not just because I was an American, but due to the fact that he knew how special I was.

He was just a few years out of the army when I had met him on Kibbutz Yagur. I was studying regular Hebrew and working on the kibbutz just before I joined my new garin on Kibbutz Sufa for my new induction date. He had moved to another kibbutz near the hills of Jerusalem – called Nachshon and was now asking me when I planned to visit. To visit my new friend again could possibly meant reviving our singing and dancing jams, which we started at one of the bomb shelters. On Yagur, we would jam past midnight and I was surprised how Eli took my free spirited dancing nature seriously. The more he jammed, the more I danced and sung – in Hebrew, in English – it didn’t matter. Coming from bohemian Greenwich Village, our needs to express ourselves artistically were as strong as our needs to feel emotionally safe and secure. Eli grew up in the city and was adopted by one of the kibbutz members. As a child, I would twirl like a ballerina in front of the full-length mirror as my mom would play one of her many Chopin mazurkas. She wouldn’t ever notice me and simply say, “Dorit, go to your room!” and eventually I would give up trying to get her to notice me and would go to my room.

But Eli played and smiled. Smiled and played. He wouldn’t mind how I would mix Italian arias I had learned from attending the FAME school behind Lincoln Center in NYC like “Oh Mio Babino Caro,” and “Nel Core Pio Non Mi Sento,” with various undulating rhythms Eli spontaneously played. I would make long and slow dance passes in the most seductive way possible hoping he would fall in love with me even though I barely knew him. I would think, if I play up the seductive American, then maybe he would be my boyfriend? Wow – what headliners that would be for my American friends! Every now and then, I would find that precious lighted place in the bom shelter where Eli had flicked on the lights and witness his encouraging smile warming up at me. It was the one of the few times since emigrating to Israel, I had felt a sense of belonging at the moment and in each other, and now, I found myself craving to relive this experience.

From behind the drums, I could see an olive skinned and lightly tanned 23 year old who looked older for his age. He had fairly large smile with billowy cheeks and black hair that would appear combed in some places and not in others. He had finished with army service and I was just about to begin. When I left Yagur, I figured that would probably be the last time I would see Eli because he would probably need to move ahead with his life.

But that night, we had made temporary plans. I would visit him at Kibbutz Nachshon. We didn’t decide yet on a date. We talked about one of the next upcoming weekends. When we said our goodbyes, I didn’t want him to leave. For a second, I held the telephone in my hand. I had an Israeli boyfriend! And that’s all I needed to know.