March 29, 2007 / 10 Nissan 5767

Two Nonagenarian Floridians Make Aliyah for Passover.

This Passover, two Jerusalem families will be reunited around the seder table after 94 year-old Edith Feldstein and Frida Weiss, a mere 91, made aliyah several days before the festival.

Edith’s two daughters, Rachelle and Michelle, who have lived in Jerusalem since the 1980s, greeted her at the airport. The day of her arrival was also her 94th birthday. Edith has nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren living in Israel.

“I’ve been on my own since my husband died last year, so it was time to be with my daughters,” said Edith. “But I’ve come to Israel to lead an active life. I’d like to do some volunteer work in the community.”

Edith was born in London as Edith Martin and met her husband Barnet while he was stationed in England as a US soldier during the Second World War. She moved to Florida in 1948 and in recent years she has been living in West Palm Beach, where she once worked in real estate.

Arriving together with Edith was Frida Weiss whose son, Dr. David Weiss, is a Jerusalem based dentist. “I already speak Hebrew so I am in a better position than most new immigrants,” explained Frida at the airport where she was met by her ten grandchildren and some of her eight great–grandchildren.

Frida Weiss  embraces her son David upon arrival at Ben Gurion airport

Frida was born and raised in Czechoslovakia and survived Auschwitz. Her two children from her first marriage perished in the concentration camp. After the war she remarried and immigrated to the U.S. where she became a Hebrew teacher.

“This is what Zionism is all about,” said Michael Jankelowitz, Foreign Press Liaison of the Jewish Agency, which facilitated their immigration and paid for their flight. “Jewish families being reunited in Israel.”