1986 Miles Hochstein Answer: I was living a false life, walking around with a kippa on my head and thinking "Shulamit Aloni is right about everything!" (She was a left wing Kinneset member at the time). Meanwhile my friend David was dying or had just died of cancer. Furthermore, I knew I couldn't live in Israel, but I couldn't admit it to myself. Furthermore, I needed to become a temporary resident (the document above) but I didn't want to. I lived in a world that was not mine, and that I could not understand. I was a walking bundle of nervous contradictions, political confusions, and personal uncertainty. I knew that I hated the religious/orthodox life that I was leading, or the fact that I was in Israel, or something, but it was terribly painful to admit these things to myself and to face up to the fact that the choice I had made to live in Israel, in the religious community I had chosen, was the wrong choice for my life.

Question: So you don't like what you see in this photo and document?

Answer: I remember what it felt like, and it seems like a sad time, a cul de sac. There was no apparent way to move my life forward. Something had to change, and soon. But at this moment the future was almost completely obscure.