Journalist Livi Alon, Channel 14's correspondent in the US, shared on social media her growing connection to religion - since moving from Israel.
After moving, she decided to fully equip her kitchen with a Chabad emissary. "Who doesn't know," she wrote in a post she published. "Since moving to the United States, I've become a little stronger, closer to religion. There was also a period when I kept Shabbat and I really, really loved it and enjoyed it.".
She added: "Just now, a few days ago I moved and decided to do something I've never done before - I asked a Chabad emissary to come today and prepare my kitchen, make my kitchen kosher. And I'm really, really excited about it.".
She later shared footage from the training in which a Chabad emissary is seen pouring hot water on the countertop. "Now you're washing the entire kitchen for me too?" she wondered with a smile.
At the end of the visit, the emissary affixed a mezuzah to the doorframe of Alon's house. "Now it's official - a kosher Jewish home.".
Due to the wave of warm responses she received to the post, she revealed in a special interview with C14 the process that preceded the emotional decision, the moment on Saturday that made her cry – and also, why is all this happening now?
""I think it was the distance from home that made me want to be closer," said Alon, adding that it was only when she arrived in America that she realized how disconnected she was from her spiritual side. "I started going to Chabad every week, and I fell in love with it. The songs of Kabbalat Shabbat really made me cry.".
According to her, after a year and a half of living in the US, she felt "a need to thank God, blessed be He.".
Although she grew up in a completely secular home, she said that she always had a special affinity for religion: "It's a world that intrigued me terribly. My grandmother had a kosher and religious home, she even had special dishes for Passover - but I didn't know her. My grandfather's father was a sofer satam.".
According to her, she felt a real need "to do something bigger for myself, even if it means stepping out of my comfort zone - I will.".
The presenter shared that every day she makes an effort and says 'I thank you' and 'Psalter for Thanksgiving.' According to her, for two months she was privileged to observe Shabbat - "and I still do it from time to time, it really strengthens me. A little at a time. That's my effort.".
She added with excitement that only after sharing the documentation online did she realize that the timing was not coincidental and that it was the week of the Lubavitcher Rebbe's Day of Rejoicing, "it makes it even more powerful.".
She also referred to the tense two and a half years that the State of Israel has gone through, and emphasized that it is precisely now that she feels a burning need "to get closer to my Jewish identity.".
