In Landed, Jennifer Lang, a less-than-enthusiastic participant in her own aliyah in 2011, takes readers on a heartfelt journey to embrace her adopted home and navigate her cross-cultural marriage.

During a brief trip to Israel in 1989, Lang met the love of her life, an Orthodox Frenchman whose dream was to live in Israel. Lang, a secular American Jew, had no such intention. Over two decades, they move back and forth—between Israel, France, the United States and, finally, back to Israel—a total of eight times. Lang also explores her struggles to feel rooted while maintaining her sanity and her marriage in her previous book, Places We Left Behind.

Landed is the continuation of her story, covering not only her seven years back in the Jewish state but earlier parts of her life as well. The memoir, a finalist for a 2024 American Writing Award, is structured in grammatically experimental mini-chapters that merge prose and poetry with occasional illustrations.

To preserve the privacy of her family members, Lang does not refer to any by name. Mari stands in for her husband, and she uses Son, Daughter 1 and Daughter 2 for her children, while her brother, who is ultra-Orthodox, is represented by a black box.

Lang also intersperses her narrative with insights drawn from her yoga practice.

In one instance, she recalls that Rob—her first yoga instructor—said that, when balanced, our relationship with our surroundings is serene and we experience a sense of calmness and peace with the world around us. When imbalanced, however, we strive for control and authority, obsess over minute details and see life through a pro/con lens, thereby losing sight of the whole picture.

A key theme in Landed is Lang’s exploration of her Jewish identity within Israeli culture. While she describes her struggles with traditions, she occasionally surprises herself. In one chapter, she regrets her decision to spend Rosh Hashanah in Jerusalem, but nevertheless during services she feels “a surprising rush of connection…to my roots: Reform movement, Camp Swig, …Eyes closed, I listen. Not because I relate to the hymn or comprehend its words but because I feel something…. Something lost, aching to be found.”

Eventually, Lang begins to find the peace she’s been seeking. On a trip to Haifa, she realizes that she’s been trapped by overfocusing on her own story and has created a personal “prison cell.” Only by breaking free of these patterns can she thrive in Israel.

And thrive she does—becoming a yoga and writing teacher and supporting her children as they become young adults and join the Israel Defense Forces. On the last day of one of her daughter’s army service, Lang overhears her daughter being showered with praise by her commanding officer and friends, which to Lang reinforces the decision to return to Israel.

Occasionally, the need to completely break free resurfaces. She describes spending a seder night with a French friend at an Indonesian restaurant in Amsterdam, and in the process feeling liberated from the restrictions of marriage, Israel and Judaism.

Lang’s prose is both candid and engaging. Landed shows that the journey to belonging is not just about finding a place, but also about discovering and accepting one’s true self.

Julie Zuckerman, an American Israeli writer, is the author of The Book of Jeremiah and the founder of Literary Modiin, a monthly author series connecting readers and writers of Jewish fiction, memoir and poetry.