Former Buffalo resident navigating life in Israel

Emily Bischoff-Bruintjes, formerly of Buffalo, has been living in Israel for almost ten years now. Bischoff graduated from Buffalo High School in 2009. While attending BHS she participated in The Herd marching band. 

Bischoff-Bruintjes became interested in pursuing a career in Archeology. “My family has always been interested in history. It is something we always talked about,” she explained. Her mother, Mary, earned degrees in history and English, and both her parents have been members of the Minnesota Historical Society for many years. 

“I have been to Fort Snelling more times than I can count. I actually used to work there,” Bischoff-Bruintjes shared. She explained that she originally wanted to be a veterinarian but ended up deciding that would not be the career path for her. “My mother said to me ‘Would you stop, you are going to be an archeologist’ and I thought that sounded good,” she recalled. 

During her junior year of high school, her mom gave her papers with information on how to make a career in archeology happen, and the rest is history. Bischoff-Bruintjes earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota- Twin Cities in anthropology. While at the University of Minnesota, she also participated in marching band. 

She decided she wanted to study archeology in geographical areas mentioned in the Bible. She found a master’s degree program offered in Israel that studied the Biblical timeline. “It was pretty much everything I wanted,” Bischoff-Bruintjes stated. “It didn’t hit me until the plane hit the ground and I realized the only Hebrew word I knew was Shalom,” she explained. “It has been adventurous,” Bischoff-Bruintjes said. 

After earning her master’s degree, she got married to Alwin Bruintjes, whom she met in Israel. She currently works for the Israel Antiquities Authority and has worked there for five years. Bischoff-Bruintjes lives in Ashdod, Israel, with her husband and their 1-year-old daughter. 

According to Bischoff-Bruintjes, Ashtod is a 45-minute drive to the northern border of the Gaza Strip. Currently, there is conflict between Israel and Hamas, a Palestinian militant group. Much of the armed conflict has taken place at or near the Gaza Strip. 

“We are relatively safe,” Bischoff-Bruintjes said. “Luckily, we were not near the strip when Hamas broke out. We were woken up on the morning of October 7, by air raid sirens,” she explained. Bischoff-Bruintjes and her family have to run down four flights of stairs to get to the bomb shelter in their apartment. “Although we are safe, you look at the Gazans and they do not have the infrastructure. No one deserved this on either side,” she stated.

“We learned that Hamas was going door to door, bomb shelter to bomb shelter. We debated whether going in the bomb shelter or staying in our apartment was safer,” she explained. Bischoff-Bruintjes and her husband decided to stay with his grandparents in Tel Aviv for a period of time. 

When they were on their way back to their apartment, they saw two Hamas agents being arrest approximately five minutes from their apartment. “What has been hard is seeing people online saying that we deserved this,” she explained. “There is so much misinformation on both sides,” she continued. 

Bischoff-Bruintjes became an Israeli citizen in August of this year. “I have been learning how to navigate life as an American in another country,” she said. She shared that Israel is now her home where she has built a life with her husband and their daughter.