From Kurdistan to Baltimore, with Love  25.11.2009   
By Josef Nathanson

She was born at home and, she remembers being told later, the advice was to place a warm coal under the expectant mother’s body to avoid infection. The family expected a boy; instead, in Kurdish fashion, there was disappointment when another girl joined the family.

Lea’s mother, Miriam, the daughter of a Jewish physician in Mar Gawwar, was 17 or 18 when she married. Lea’s father, Yezekiel, a fabrics merchant, was a widower, who already had four children, one son and three daughters, from his first marriage. He was over forty years older than her mother, but he represented the only marriageable opportunity in the area. Family lore has this reaction from Lea’s grandmother: “I don’t care if he is 200 years older—he’s Jewish.”

Around 1950, the family had to immigrate to Israel. Jews, who had lived in the Kurdistan region for 2,700 years, were made to feel unwelcome after the establishment of the State of Israel and the subsequent war involving several Muslim states. In the process of a hasty move, Lea’s father had to abandon his seven fabric stores.

The family traveled to Israel by way of Turkey. While three generations of the family were able to come to Israel, Lea’s grandfather died one year after their arrival. He had been heart- broken after his son, Lea’s uncle, was fatally shot, a victim of the ongoing Arab-Israeli tensions.

Arriving in Israel in 1951, Lea was still a toddler. (There is no birth record to establish the precise year of her birth.) The family was settled in a sharaliya, a temporary immigration absorption center, and lived in tents with little food and little water. At this time, the extended family included Lea’s father, mother, a step-brother and three step-sisters,www.ekurd.netwho were now married, one brother, three sisters, an uncle and an aunt. The extended family stayed in the sharaliyah for eleven months. They were resettled to Hartuv and a cement blockhouse.

Lea reports living in several different places until settling in the moshav, Pa’amey Tashaz, in the Rahat region. Her father, the onetime fabrics merchant, was now recast as a farmer tending to a donkey, a goat, sheep and ducks. This wasn’t really Yezekiel’s calling. Young Lea helped him in shepherding the animals. Then in his 70s, her father was given a rifle and a new occupation. He was assigned to guard the moshav from its close-by Arab neighbors.

Lea remembers her mother and the children growing chickpeas, lentils, beets and cotton on the moshav. Others grew apricots, figs, oranges, flowers and herbs. Lea’s mother was absolutely not happy with this agricultural life. On one occasion she ran away from home. The older people in the moshav found her and brought her home.

With all the residential moves over the years, Lea’s education was erratic. Eventually, the various nearby moshavim built a beautiful school and Lea’s academic performance began moving in a positive direction. When it was time for her to attend high school, the school authorities gave her a special opportunity in the form of a stipendia – a special scholarship.

When her parents learned she would not be following a standard program, they thought that she had somehow been naughty and that the authorities wanted to punish her. When matters were clarified, she was sent to school in Jerusalem to study in a program paid for by the Israeli government. After a month, she was asked “What do you want to do”. Her quick response was “I want to be an actress”. Her ultimate goal was to perform at Theater Habima, Israel’s premier performing venue.

At age 21 or 22, Lea married a Kurdish Jewish man. After the family grew to include two children, Asif and Maayan, they were divorced and she pursued a more practical career as a teacher. But her love of nature and desire for adventure remained irrepressible. In 1977 she and her children spent two years in Nairobi Kenya. Later, in 1988, they spent two years in the Brazilian rainforest. Through all this time she remained interested in theater, dance and the visual arts.

In 2000, Lea came to America, leaving Israel ten days after celebrating her younger son’s wedding. She was welcomed into Baltimore’s Jewish community, began teaching Hebrew at Beth Tfiloh and later directed three acclaimed musical productions, all in Hebrew, at Krieger Schecter Day School. She is now teaching Hebrew at Yeshivat Rambam, where she says the combination of science, bible and Zionist spirit can’t be beat.

With her special skills, Lea continues to teach Israeli dance, creates her own jewelry and paintings and decorates special events on the side. She also stays in touch with Kurdish immigrants who are living in New York,www.ekurd.netSan Francisco and Israel and has involved one of her sons in her life-long interests, having him perform in one of her productions entitled, “From Kurdistan, With Love.” In her free time she works on a book documenting Jewish life in Kurdistan, centering on the experiences of her own family. She dreams of going back to her place of birth.

Lea is able to visit her large family in Israel and enjoyed an extended stay with the families of her two sons, five grandchildren and many relatives this past summer. She remains the organizer among nine living brothers and sisters who span the range between 50 and 90 years of age.

Her mother returned to the U.S. with Lea for a visit later this past summer. Now an octogenarian, Miriam is shown in the photo preparing doka (Kurdish pita) on the beach in Long Island, on a traditional suge (inverted cook plate). Lea reports that her mother still has great spirit and surprising stamina. Miriam remains the core of her very large family back in moshav Nir Moshe.

Lea proclaims that she proud to be Jewish, proud of her tradition, her language (as a child she spoke Aramaic and a Kurdish dialect, Nash-didan), and delights in her special foods, including kofte, large meatballs consisting of beef, lamb, chick peas and rice, and Kurdish dolma, served with goat yogurt, lots of garlic and herbs. She closes the interview with a special Kurdish note of welcome, “The door is open!”

Josef Nathanson, a local urban planning consultant, has begun a series of oral histories of members of the Jewish Diaspora who have found their way to Greater Baltimore.

Copyright, respective author or news agency, Jewishtimes com

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