Immediately upon arriving in Israel I noticed how different things are from my home in San Francisco. To my surprise, the first words I heard when I stepped off the plane were "welcome home." 

Although it was not until today when we visited Latrun (the Armored Corps Memorial Site) and spent the night in a Bedouin tent when I realized why Israeli's say "welcome home."

Coming from a mixed race family, I don't simply see "black people." I see Haitians, Black Americans and South Africans as similar in skin tone only and as the nuanced people they are because we don't share the same cultures, experiences, or even the same languages.

What we do share is the pain of horrific abuse, enslavement and mistreatment by people who see us as less than human - and the willingness to risk our lives if it means a better life for our children.

At Latrun we learned the story of a "rag-tag group of Jewish people" from different cultures, experiences and languages who only really shared the same faith and willingness to risk their lives if it meant better lives for their children.

After learning that the Jewish people decided to stand together to risk their lives against powerful adversary, in spite of their lack of military expertise or global support, I started to understand the story of Israel in 1948. It was the same story I learned about Haitians in 1804, Black Americans in 1864, and South Africans in 1994.

As a Haitian-American I do not share the same culture or language of the Israeli people, but I was starting to feel like there really was something to this "welcome home" thing.

This feeling stayed with me throughout the day as we visited a groundbreaking "mixed" community and transitioned from our "4 star hotel to our thousand star hotel" in the Bedouin tents at Kfar Hanokdim.

Away from the trappings of city noises and free wifi in the hotel lobby, our whole group shared shot glasses of coffee and tea while huddled around our Bedouin host.

As we shared food from the same plate for dinner and made music with our bodies around the campfire with Jhos, I really started to get it. I looked up at the same stars I have been looking at my whole life and in that moment I realized that even though I was 10,000 miles from my apartment - I was home.