RETURN!
Last Friday 13th November in Melbourne Australia was a day of Return for one very determined young woman from Portugal who never gave up she would find her Jewish ancestors from the Iberian tragedy of 1492-1496.
Unfortunately with the passing of 528 years and the attempt by gentile society to wipe out Jewish identity in Spain and Portugal, her task was near impossible and so it proved to be.
This setback did not extinguish her quest to return to the Jewish people nor dampen her enthusiasm for the truth.
Her name is Shilo Miriam and like so many Jewish souls she knew that not for one moment during all the centuries of horror, of suffering, of tragedy, of genocide, did the Jew forget who he/she was. Not in the ghetto’s of Europe or the mellah of Morroco and Yemen, not in the misery of the shtetl of Poland and Russia nor the anti-Semitism of France and Germany.
The Exile broke the Jews body and tried to destroy his Jewish soul but you cannot destroy that which is attached to the G-d of Israel never, never!
The Jew may be exhausted and for a moment forlorn yet he rises up again and never gives in.
Last Friday in Melbourne Australia was such a moment when Shilo Miriam joined the Jewish people and added a stone in the bridge of return!
Next stop Eretz Israel!
