"If not for my visits, they wouldn’t know about shul and Shabbos. They would know nothing"

I’m waiting in line with my toddler and baby for the umpteenth bathroom trip on our long flight from America to Israel.

In front of me is a heavyset grandmotherly woman, oozing warmth. There’s something about her that reminds me of my own grandmother. She pinches my baby’s chubby cheek with her bejeweled fingers as she strikes up a conversation.

“How old is he? Six months? I have a grandson that age. Haven’t seen him in nearly two months.” She whips out her phone from the pocket of her flowing tunic and shows off a picture composed of 90 percent nose.

I ooh and aah appropriately, and my son cranes his neck to get a glimpse.

“Going to visit my daughter and the grandkids. Can’t wait.”

“Nice! How often do you go?”

Her dimples deepen. “I aim to go every two months or so. But with Covid, you know…”

“You’re telling me?!” We talk about missed weddings and bar mitzvahs and the dozens of almost-visits.

“And where do you stay when you’re in Israel?” I ask.

“At my daughter’s place. She lives on a moshav 30 minutes from Jerusalem.”

I’m thinking of comfy accommodations and endless green pastures. “That’s nice that she has room to host.”

She laughs, a tinkling sound. “I squeeze into a room with the grandkids, get the lower bunk.”

She tells me how her daughter traveled to Israel in her early twenties with a burning passion to discover the land and Judaism. But everything went downhill. Wrong company, wrong friends, wrong mindset. “We thought she was going to grow spiritually. Instead, she turned secular.” Her voice cracks, and in the darkness I detect something glistening in her eyes.