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I'm writing this on my daily train commute into Manhattan. The woman who sat next to me this morning is brushing her hair and polishing her nails at the same time, and the man across from me is loudly having an argument with either his wife, ex-wife, or soon-to-be ex-wife. It's 6:30 a.m., and I find myself dreaming of being stuck in traffic on the 405 in Los Angeles.

I loved living in LA. The weather was always awesome, I learned to love oat milk lattes, and the homeless man I passed on my walk to shul every Shabbat would wish me "Good Shabbos." I bought a tent for earthquake preparedness and went to the beach consistently, about once a year.

A few weeks ago, we passed the one-year mark since our family left LA and moved back to New York. I grew up here, and I'm also a mover by nature: I travel often for the Jewish Grad Organization (JGO) and have always been blessed to feel comfortable in any setting. So I was surprised by how hard the transition moving back here was.

A year later, though, I'm finding my NYC rhythm again. I now once again know the right back streets and alleys to take, my barista knows my “rabbi order,” the cop I pass on my way into the building says “yullo” every day, and the guys at my bodega around the corner don’t share the same views on Israel as me, but they do share my love and loyalty to the Knicks, which makes for entertaining conversation.

I've even regained enough confidence to give tourists subway directions, although recently I gave some confident guidance that I realized was completely wrong after they left me. If you find a group of South Korean tourists in Staten Island looking for Times Square, that's because of yours truly.

One year later, NYC is starting to feel like home again. Our girls love it here, we've found our routines, JGO is growing, I'm working harder than ever to build something great here, and we've had some big wins.

We've reached roughly 5,000 students in New York, and I'm pounding the pavement trying to build an entirely new base of support here, and this summer we closed on the JGO Townhouse, one of the biggest wins in our history. It's been exhausting, but it's also been incredibly exciting to feel like I'm helping build something from the ground up again.

Being Jewish in New York also feels different than when I grew up here. I don't walk around with fear, but wearing a yarmulke around the city feels different today. These are different times.

And maybe that's why this year has given me an even greater appreciation for what our students go through.

Moving back to my own hometown was an adjustment for me. I would imagine moving to a new city as a grad student and starting an intense program while having no community waiting for you is extremely difficult.

That's what we try to build at JGO!

We want a Jewish grad student to arrive in a new city and immediately have a Shabbat table, friends, mentors, Jewish community, and a place where they belong. We want to make a huge, unfamiliar city feel a little smaller and a lot more like home.

I still miss LA, especially at 6:30 a.m. when someone is playing hair salon next to me and another person's marriage is unraveling across the aisle. Why would he criticize her cooking? And he shouldn't be out 3 nights a week playing poker with his guy friends until the wee hours of the morning. He needs to stop talking immediately.

But I'm grateful to be here, grateful to be building, and incredibly grateful to be doing this work for our Jewish community.

Let's go, year two!

Dave