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Nov. 4, 2005
Tales of great courageousness
Beth Hamidrash co-founder led a long and truly remarkable life.
CASSANDRA FREEMAN
Whenever I hear a "desert call," I think of my grandmother.
She would do the loud, high-pitched call at just about every major
celebration. For me, it was always a playful reminder of my heritage.
I grew up hoping she would call it out as I walked down the aisle
at my wedding.
No, my grandmother wasn't Bedouin. She was a proud, fierce and warm-hearted
Sephardi Jew who kept her identity intact as she moved from Baghdad
to Bangalore to Vancouver during her lifetime.
She died almost six years ago, on the last day of Chanukah. My grandmother
had many names. Kamal was her Arabic name, Sarach was her Hebrew
name and Sarah Moses was the name she used most often in Canada.
Her 11 sons and daughters simply referred to her affectionately
as "the general."
I remember her as a very colorful woman, with gold bangles, rings,
earrings and red hair always intact. In her 90s, she would clap
and sing to Sephardi prayers she had on tape and watch Hindi and
Arabic videos.
I also remember dinners for two dozen on Passover, Rosh Hashanah
and Friday nights. She would routinely go to the Safeway at 25th
and Oak, giving the workers in the back home-baked pastry and cookies
in return for bruised fruits and vegetables that they were going
to throw out. On one particular occasion, she bargained with the
manager for the best price on a watermelon. I was embarrassed, until
I realized that they were both having a great time. Whenever I throw
food out today, I hear my grandmother's voice admonishing me in
Arabic and English: "Whee! Machlel! It's a sin to waste food."
My grandparents were two of the founders of Beth Hamidrash Synagogue.
For a few years, in fact, their living room was the synagogue. Forty-seven
years ago, my parents, Joyce and Bernie Freeman, were married there
by my grandfather.
When the synagogue moved to its present location at 17th and Heather,
I remember sitting beside my mother and grandmother, listening to
ancient Sephardi chants and prayers. It felt as if I were cast back
to a time when all of world Jewry lived in the Middle East or Spain.
It was magical, but it was not exotic. It was simply who we were.
When she was well into her 80s, I will never forget the time when
my grandmother ordered the men upstairs to pray so that the women
could meet downstairs. No one dared question the general.
She commanded attention when she needed to, in spite of the fact
that she had never been able to learn to read or write. She even
gave advice to the mohel at the bris of one of my nephews. The rabbi
present told him to listen to what she said. I have witnesses.
When the Turks occupied Iraq, my grandmother was a child working
in her father's store. When she saw Turkish soldiers coming to demand
money, Kamal would courageously slip the cash into her apron and
walk out as the Turkish soldiers came in.
So it didn't really surprise me when my mother told me that my grandmother
played with snakes when she was a child. Kamal's grandmother, Samra,
had a pet snake that she would leave to guard a new baby in the
house. When Samra returned, the snake would be arched and ready
to attack anyone who came near the cradle.
Samra was known as a psychic healer in Baghdad. She passed on her
psychic intuition to almost all the women who came after her.
Kamal's relatives came to her in her dreams. She could also sense
when a friend or relative was ill almost before they did. And she
called to see if she could help.
She could also see a simchah before it was ready to happen. When
I first started dating my husband, Irwin Levin, a decade ago, when
I was 34, she soon started asking me questions like: "Where's
your husband today? Will you see him tonight? Where are you going
with your husband tomorrow?"
My grandmother married her husband when she was about 15. The marriage
was arranged, but my grandmother had chosen him when they were still
children.
My grandfather, Guergi (George), would walk down the street to visit
Kamal and her chaperones on the Sabbath. As is still the custom
of some Iraqi Jews, he would wear his pajamas. It is, after all,
a day of rest.
By the time she married, Kamal was a very knowledgeable young woman.
She had spent countless hours listening outside her uncle's classroom,
learning about Judaism and the teachings of the Ben Ish Chai –
a legendary Iraqi scholar.
She married my grandfather, and her first two children were born
in Baghdad. Not far into the couple's life together, my grandfather
was thrown in prison and beaten up for a crime he did not commit.
The Jewish community rallied together and hired a British lawyer.
As soon as grandpa was home, the young family left Baghdad to start
a new life with relatives in Bangalore, India. It was sometime during
the late 1920s that my grandfather began selling clothes, complete
with horse and carriage, in his new city. Soon there was another
store that my grandfather ran and for which my grandmother designed
clothing.
Every two years or so, there was another child to feed. My grandmother
gave birth to 16 children. Eleven lived: six girls and five boys,
in that order. My mother, Joyce, was daughter number five. She remembers
looking out of the top window of the store watching Mahatma Gandhi
– or Gandhije, as his followers knew him – walking by
with a parade of people around him, in direct defiance of the British
occupation.
It was an exciting time for the family. Then-Indian prime minister
Jawaharlal Nehru would come to the store when he visited Bangalore.
My grandmother, with children and a servant in tow, once visited
the maharajah's son to present him with clothing that my grandmother
designed for his mother. Hindu and Muslim friends would come by
the store as well – and even though the family thought the
British occupation was a disgrace, my grandmother regularly cooked
Shabbat dinner for the British and American Jewish soldiers. Kamal
was also a great strategist. Four soldiers married her eldest daughters.
After the civil war, the family moved to Vancouver, where once again,
my grandparents learned to start afresh, and opened another store.
They were part of a small but growing and vital Sephardi community.
My grandfather died when I was about 23. My grandmother died when
I was 39. She was well into her 90s. My husband and I were married
six months later, outside Beth Hamidrash, by Rabbi Ilan Acoca.
There were no "desert calls" at my wedding, but both my
mother and I sensed Sarah Kamal Moses' presence on that day. For
me, it was as if her spirit was at one with the wind – playfully
dancing in and around the poles of the brightly decorated chuppah.
Cassandra Freeman is a Vancouver freelance writer. This
story was written with contributions from the Moses family.
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