It’s always a pleasure to challenge stereotypes. Generally I don’t have much contact with highly observant Jews and thus am fairly ignorant of the nuances in the various groups. Growing up in Beverlywood, an upper middle class Los Angeles neighborhood, I was surrounded by highly assimilated families, mostly Reform and some Conservative. Since I left home, however, many prosperous Modern Orthodox, Hassidic, Israeli and Iranian Jewish families have moved into the neighborhood, along with a more diverse mix of non-Jewish professionals. That is how we came to know Ester and Carmi Yellin and their four children, a very observant family. They moved into the house next door to ours twenty-three years ago when their eldest child, daughter Rivital, was five years old. Carmi’s work as a computer engineer brought the family from Israel to Los Angeles. As their family grew with the addition of three boys, they would come next door to visit my mother or swim in her pool. My mother took a great interest in the children and enjoyed seeing them grow up. When we were in town we would make a point to stop by and say hello and our children got to know them as well. On Friday evenings we would see Carmi and the boys, dressed in white shirts, black pants and impressive black hats, returning from Kabbalat Shabbat services at the their shul on nearby Pico Blvd. Then, through their open kitchen window, we would hear the lively Shabbat singing around the table. Ester’s parents, and later, her widowed mother also came from Israel to spend several months with the family and enjoyed talking with my parents. Over the years a fondness grew between the two families—very different in their practices but both committed to Judaism and connected to their own Jewish communities.
In 2001 when my father died and my mother was treated for breast cancer, Ester sent the boys over to our house every Friday with a delicious Shabbat meal. She looked out for my mother, sending flowers on her birthday and other gifts for the holidays. Rivital grew up and went away to school in England. As the boys got older, Ester became concerned about their education, arranging for them to be home-schooled with a young Canadian tutor for two years when she was dissatisfied with the local options. But finally, she felt that they needed to return to Jerusalem. So, for seven years she commuted between her husband in L.A. and her children and mother in Jerusalem. As she put it, she was El Al’s best customer! Finally, it became too much. Just a few months ago Carmi decided to leave his job and move back to Jerusalem to be reunited with the family, which has grown larger with the addition of two granddaughters from Rivital’s marriage.
That is how we came to visit their home in the Matersdorf neighborhood of Jerusalem. They were in the midst of Passover cleaning---a huge deal here—but welcomed us warmly to their three-level, four bedroom town-house on a small street with an incredible vista of the city spread out below. Rivital and her two young daughters— two year old Miriam Saraleh and seven week-old Freidaleh—came from their nearby apartment. It was wonderful to see how the boys had grown and to see Rivital so happy with her girls. She has given up teaching English to high school girls but speaks to her daughters in English and wants them to be bilingual. In fact, we had brought a Hebrew version of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” for Miriam and Rivital said it was her favorite book in English. Ester regaled us with the hilarious story of her Herculean efforts to get an Israeli driver’s license (after driving for 30 years in the States, the bureaucrats wanted her to prove she didn’t need supervision!). She applauded our attempts to speak Hebrew, remembering what it was like to transform the English she learned in school into real conversations in LA. Ester’s mother, a Tel Aviv resident for sixty years (Ester also grew up there), shared her stories about witnessing the creation of the state as a girl of seventeen. She informed us that she never joined any political parties because she wanted to keep an independent mind and think for herself. Coincidentally, she lived on Y.L. Peretz, the very street where Kav LaOved (the worker’s organization where I have been volunteering) has its offices. We also heard the story of how Ester’s grandfather came here- a journey that took him from Poland to Russia to Siberia before he became part of a Polish regiment of the British armed forces in Palestine (from which he deserted with the help of Jewish militia). His father had been a rebbe in Russia but after the Russian Revolution had moved to Poland and established the first yeshiva there. Carmi’s family has been in Jerusalem for eleven generations. There’s even a street named after his great, great, great, great, great ( not sure how many greats) grandfather—David Yellin—and a descendant has written a book about his life. Driving us to the central bus station to get the bus back to Tel Aviv, Carmi told us an incredible story about this great (plus) grandfather who came to Palestine during the time of the Turkish rule. He and his wife were living in Poland with a daughter but, after l0 years, had been unable to conceive another child. They felt their luck would change in Zion. When they got to Jerusalem a plague broke out. The choices were to seal up your home and remain inside or leave the area. Their neighbors remained in their home but both parents died, leaving a small orphaned baby. Carmi’s great (great, great,etc.) grandparents took in the child even though they could have been exposed to the illness. Soon thereafter they conceived their own child and the two boys grew up like brothers. I’m sure that the book he showed us tells many other fascinating tales but it was in Hebrew. Maybe I’ll learn more about the family history next time.
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