Sukkot in Florida offers an Israeli family joy, community, and a reminder of war - opinion

On the eve of Sukkot, I find myself not in Jerusalem but in Kissimmee, Florida, in a gated vacation home community called Encore at Reunion.

Our youngest grandchild, Ye’ela, now seven, has convinced her family that it’s her turn to visit Disney World. Her older siblings have already been. My son, daughter-in-law, and their four children can all take off the days of Sukkot. My physician son even has a lecture to give for Hadassah in Miami. We decide to go for it.

I admit to having a weakness for Disney World. Walking down Disney’s Main Street, U.S.A., riding through the African savanna on Kilimanjaro Safaris in Animal Kingdom, and watching For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration in Hollywood Studios when the snow comes down (twice!) offer an invigorating vacation break from the Middle East. I like refilling my Disney popcorn bucket at every stop, eating Mickey Mouse-shaped ice cream, and being silly enough to decorate my hat with a Minnie Mouse headband.

Seven-year-old Ye’ela has spent most of her life either in a pandemic or wartime, and I want to see her pose with those Disney princesses and ride the Slinky Dog Dash roller coaster with her siblings.

So I take on the job of logistics, which has to include Sukkot observance, of course.

Where to stay? We want a house, not a hotel, partly because it’s less expensive, but also because we can prepare kosher food for kids used to Israeli cuisine and celebrate the holiday our own way. There are literally tens of thousands of vacation home rentals in the Orlando area, but only a handful of rental communities allow or tolerate the building of those strange shacks called sukkot on their property. Hence, we decide on Encore at Reunion.

For most of the year, Encore is a regular vacation resort village for American and foreign guests. But on Jewish holidays, particularly Sukkot and Passover, hundreds of observant Jews abandon their already chilly backyards in colder states to erect their sukkot in Florida.

Encore is 18 km. from the Magic Kingdom and closer to the other three Disney parks. It is not only sukkah-friendly but has an eruv, making carrying possible on Shabbat. Over the last decade or so, this has become a popular holiday venue for religious Jews. The resort also includes shuttles to the parks and a large, free water park with impressive waterslides for all ages.

I arrange for an unassembled sukkah to be delivered by one of several local suppliers (Klein’s, if you’re interested). Ironically, we live on a Jerusalem street with a bustling Four Species marketplace, but fear violating import laws by bringing an etrog into the Citrus State. So I order the Four Species from a pop-up Chabad distributor, also at Encore.

We bring some pots and pans and buy others. With 337 km. separating Miami International Airport from Encore, I search for and find a reliable, reasonably priced van service (DNR Limousine Services, in case you’re interested; ask for Vladi) that also stops at a kosher supermarket so we can pick up our large online order of food supplies and sushi lunch.

By the day before the holiday, the nondescript vacation village has been transformed into a Sukkot hub. Thatched-roof booths are ubiquitous, mostly in driveways, but also in backyards beside the private swimming pools.

Nearly all those rental homes also have golf carts in their driveways, not for golfaholics, but for families to use as transportation and entertainment on the resort’s streets. Many of the drivers look dangerously underage.

Despite jet lag, we spend our first two happy days in Disney parks. Then it’s Sukkot eve. Our sukkah is up and, thanks to my daughter-in-law, our holiday food is sizzling on a hotplate delivered by Amazon Prime.

One neighbor insists that we come inside and eat a plate of cholent. Another invites my husband to walk with him to one of the pop-up synagogues for the Mincha prayer. My granddaughter Eliana, 18, and I try to follow them soon after candlelighting, but never find the synagogue.

The air is balmy, with no Florida hurricanes threatening tonight. There are few cars on the street. Passersby wish us “gut Shabbos” and “gut yom tov.”

'Strange and unexpected'

“How strange and unexpected it is to be in Florida and to be surrounded by religious Jews,” Eliana says.

Most of those strolling like us are girls and women, their cooking done, their menfolk off to synagogues. The teenage girls look a lot like Eliana, in holiday dresses, long hair, and welcoming smiles. We stop to chat with a few of them along the way.

Then, when we are alone, Eliana says something that changes the mood.

“I see these girls. In most ways, they’re just like me, but none of them has been through what we teenagers in Israel have gone through. We’ve dodged rockets, cared for families where the father was gone for months, and, worst of all, we’ve gone to so many funerals and shiva calls. We’re all going to national service and the army. How different our lives have been.”

We walk quietly after that, her words bringing us back to Israel, to her hometown of Modi’in.

Modi’in has suffered devastating military losses during the war. So many young residents have fallen that the military cemetery has required expansion. When you’re 18, you know many of the soldiers from school or youth movements. The names on the gravestones are not strangers.

Eliana herself is spending the year at Tzahali, a pre-military preparatory academy for religious young women, founded in 2006. The academy is named in memory of combat navigator Tamar Ariel, whose youth group was led by Eliana’s aunt and uncle. Its program combines Torah study with preparation for meaningful leadership and service in the IDF.

Eliana already has her future army placement.

Our somberness fades as we sit around the holiday table, enjoying the home-cooked food and the novelty of having our own sukkah so far from home. Sukkot is, after all, the holiday of joy, reaffirming our reliance on the Almighty. Through the thatched roof of our Florida sukkah, the same stars we see at home are abundant and reassuring.

Little Ye’ela does get to see the princesses. She turns out to be a roller coaster enthusiast, riding with siblings Matan, 10; Ariel, 16; and Eliana on the famous roller coasters.

By the time we reach the finale, the magnificent fireworks over the Magic Kingdom, no one thinks of comparing them to the Iron Dome squiggles of light that have so often illuminated the heavens over Modi’in. Watching the bursts of light align in the air to create hearts and Disney characters, the children are able to look up at the sky and focus on the beauty.

We, too.

The writer is the Israel director of public relations at Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. Her latest book is A Daughter of Many Mothers, cowritten with Holocaust survivor and premier English-language witness Rena Quint.