Some family history

I'm back on my travel blog! its summer 2007, i was in Montreal for a month doing the Explore bursary program at UQAM and now i'm in Israel to attend Lisa's brothers wedding and of course visit family. The purpose of this post however is to write down some family history for myself before i forget it because it's really amazing.

The state of Israel was formed in 1948 and my dad's parents living in Morocco at the time with their 6 children (including my dad) decided they were going to immigrate to Israel. They took a boat for France where they lived in a refugee style camp until it became feasible for them to continue on to Israel. My dad's 3 oldest siblings left first, as part of a youth movement, and were put into boarding school there. When my grandparents arrived in Israel, they lived in a tent for about a year, waiting to be placed in a home by the newly formed government, at the time dealing with the coordination of thousands of new immigrants. My grandfather was apparently very stubborn and would not be placed anywhere in the country except for Jerusalem, which was the first choice of many. From the tent city they were then moved to a shanty shack town where they remained for about 4 years, refusing to go anywhere but Jerusalem where the waiting lists were the longest. The toilets and fresh water there were blocks away from where they slept. My grandmother didn't work at the time but received money from the government to raise her kids. My grandma told me she didn't want to think of that time or it would make her cry because of all the hardships they endured. Ultimately the hardships consisted of two big events that occured during their time in the temporary housing: My grandfather died at a young age from a brain tumour, leaving my grandma alone with 7 kids. My dad's younger sister had been born about a year ago in Israel and she was the 7th. Unfortunately she too died that same year (1951-1954??) at around the age of only 1 due to the lack of medical facilities in the new country. Somehow my grandma continued on, always making sure her kids were going to school, well clothed and nourished. My dad being only about 2 years old when arriving in Israel says he never knew they were poor growing up because of the care my grandma took in raising them. He only realized later when a teenager looking back at his younger years. On the death of my grandfather, my grandma's parents and grandma (my great grandparents and great great grandmother) came to Israel from Morocco too to help my grandma out. They were not allowing many elderly or sickly people into the country at that time because they realized the importance of strengthning the country with youthful vigor due the issues that were constantly facing Israel at its young age. Due to the circumstances though, my great grandparents and great great grandmother were given an exemption and allowed to immigrate. My grandpa's parents also came to Israel from Morocco however they came as tourists and then never left.

Things started looking up when after about 4 years in the shacks my grandmother started renting a 1 bedroom apartment from the government in Jerusalem for her and the 3 children with her that weren't either married by now or still in boarding school. About 10 years later the government would offer up the apartment complex for purchase and my grandmother bought her unit where she lives to this day.

My grandma started working 2 jobs as a cleaning lady at the Dutch embassy as well as at government buildings. She also fit in Hebrew language classes to learn the country's language as she only spoke Moroccan Arabic and French at the time. She would apparently wake up at 5 in the morning (which she still did until recently or maybe even still does today, probably out of habit), make breakfast lunch and dinner for her kids, then leave to work not to return until the evening.

Another stroke of luck granted her the position of household and maintenance supervisor for the government buildings. The old supervisor had resigned and they had appointed her as the temporary supervisor until they could find someone more "qualified" eg. educated. Luckily they never did and she retained her supervisor position. Things seemed to have only gone uphill from there. All 6 of her children married and had kids of their own. she has 21 grandchildren and an exponentially larger amount of great grandchildren not to mention 1 or 2 great great grandchildren. i've never seen a family so tightly knit who care for their Alpha Mother so well (granted i'm slightly biased here). She just recently had her 90th birthday. and that's the end of the story!