For the sake of the house of the Lord, our God (Ps 122:9)

Today, as usual, members of our Haifa kehilla come together for prayer. And after the mass all of us celebrated a significant event – the 50th anniversary of the arrival of Elisheva Hemker in Israel. Elisheva begins her beautiful story in Israel from the day of April 12,1962, when for the first time she set foot on the land of Israel.

It was not so easy for a young Christian German woman to find her place in Jewish society, still so fresh with the memory of the Shoah. She had to overcome the misunderstanding of friends and various government offices both in her native Germany and in Israel. Elisheva tells her story in a reserved and quiet way, with great love and humor. We laughed together about her adventures on the kibbutz, the only one that agreed to receive a young German woman, and where she studied Hebrew and worked as a gardener. With great interest we listened about the beginning of Elisheva's close cooperation with Father Daniel Rufeisen (read about him here), the founder of the Hebrew speaking Catholic community in Haifa. For more than 35 years they worked together. So much work was done!

It is impossible to compress 50 years of self-sacrificing labor in a short text. So we ask Elisheva not to shorten her narrative and to continue her story in our next meeting. However, for now delicious cake is waiting for us! Those present gather in the sitting room, but we go on talking about Elisheva's life, old times, about people who did so much for our Hebrew speaking communities…

This year ,January 29, we celebrated her 80th birthday. Her friends wrote a beautiful poem for her and it can be read in Hebrew here.

We thank you, Elisheva!