FROM MATTAPAN TO MODIIN As he entered his forties, Gary Katz hardly envisioned that within a few short years

he would find himself living in Israel. Its not that he didnt empathize and share an affinity with the Jewish state. He certainly did. But the forth decade of life is not the usual stage when one contemplates moving to Israel. That tends to be reserved for a select few among the younger, post college Jewish crowd, that age when idealism is at its peak, just before lifes commitments of career, marriage, and kids seep in to mitigate those dashing Zionist aspirations of youth. And Gary was long past his twenty something years. His professional life was certainly where it should be, since being a psychiatrist in Boston, or anywhere in America for that matter, was just about as good as it gets in the career hierarchy. And living in affluent Sharon was surely along way from MattapanDorchester where he grew up. Then Dr. Katz married an Israeli- a Sabra -and had two darling children. Life in America was good for her too. But to her life in Israel was life itself, and, she concluded, would be for her husband and their children. So off they went. And Gary Katz, with a doctorate in psychiatry, limited Hebrew, and a lot of chutzpah, soon found himself in the land that he once championed from the comfort of his suburban living room. He was now a citizen of Israel. Oh how life had changed. And the first year in his new country came and went, then another, and another, until he found himself at the end of a long decade in his new country, living in a place called Modin, with one son preparing to go off to the Jewish army of the Jewish state, and another daughter eagerly awaiting her turn. A long way from Mattapan indeed. Dr. Gary Katz is my main source in Israel for anything ranging from intelligence briefings (dont know he gets them) to first hand public opinion from the man on the street (dont know how hes so patient). He sent me a speech last week from Benjamin Netanyahu to a group of Americans arriving in Israel to make aliyah, just like Gary did years before. The Prime Ministers speech, informal and off-the-cuff, was doubtless one of his best. he spoke from the heart as a sometime American to these Americans assembled before him. He was one of them, and they felt it, The most important thing is that you are here. He meant it, and they knew it. I wrote back to Dr. Katz, Gary, the leader of the Jewish people was speaking to you as much as he was speaking to them. You are an integral part of something infinitely more important than anything anyone of us can attest to here in the Galut- you are a part of the Third Jewish Commonwealth, the modern state of Israel. You belong to an extraordinary moment in Jewish history. And your son will soon be a Jewish soldier in the first Jewish army in over 2,000 years. I really envy you. I meant it, too.