In the summer of 2014 during the middle of Operation Protective Edge, I embarked on my first journey to Israel. At 24, I finally had the great honor and pleasure of participating in a Birthright Israel LA Way trip with The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. I was born in Crimea during the Soviet Union into an extremely secular Jewish household. I don’t blame my parents for the lack of Jewish life in our house—after all, they grew up in a country where Jews were persec