“Are you going to vote for Obama?” my 14-year-old daughter, Misgav, asked me the other day.
“I don’t vote in American elections,” I replied, “because I’m Israeli.”
“But you could vote, right?”
“I could,” I acknowledged. “I’m also an American citizen. But the last time I voted was in 1980. Once I decided to make my life here and began voting in Israeli elections, I didn’t think it would be right to vote in American ones, too.”
“You should vote for Obama,” Misgav said.
“Maybe I should,” I acknowledged.
It’s a dilemma. I retain my American passport and file a tax return with the IRS every year, but I don’t maintain a residence in the U.S. I have served in a foreign army and have no intention of ever returning to the country I grew up in.