My name is Maya, and I live in New Milford. I was born in Long Island, and lived there for 7 years. I then moved to Israel for a year and a half. After that, i moved to Englewood NJ and stayed there for 5 years.
My mother's name is Chava, she born in South Africa and moved to America in 1998. My father, Jeshayahu David, was born in Crown Heights and moved to Israel in 1989. My parents have been married for almost 17 years and have 3 kids: Yehudit Maya, Perla Chana and Shlomo Zalmen. Let's go further into my mother's side of the family. My great-grandfather, Shavti Nissel, was a very special man. He was exceptionally smart, and knew 8 languages: Hebrew, English, Yiddish, Italian, French, Romanian, Hungarian and Russian. He was born in Arad, Romania, and moved to Israel after World War II to fight in the Israeli Independence War as Special Services.
My great-grandmother, Chava, was a beautiful woman who was born in Leipzig, Germany. Chava was able to move to London with her parents after Kristallnacht because of her father's Romanian passport. After the war, she moved to Italy to take care of orphans who were left alone after the war. After a few years, she moved to Israel, where she later met my great grandfather. Chava and Shavti got married in 1951 in Israel. They had three kids, Judy, Tamar, and Manny. My Grandmother, Tamar, was born in Tel-Aviv, Israel, and moved with her family to London at a young age because of lack of work for her father. She lived with her mother's parents because her grandmother was very sick, Savta (Hebrew word for grandmother) Chava took care of her mother until she passed. Once Tamar was 16 years old, she went to a Seminary in called Gateshead, where she met my grandfather, Yitzak Yonah. They got married and had three kids in Israel. They then moved to South Africa because of a diamondbusiness my grandfather had. They had another four children and lived happily in South Africa for 20 years. After that, they moved to Long Island in 1998. My mother completed middle and high school in Crown Heights, going on to board at people's houses because of the distance. She then went on the move to Israel for seminary, meeting my father, and marring him at 19 years old.
Each of those unique storied has led to me being born, and this moment of you reading this, and learning a bit more about a fantastic family. I'm glad I was able to research this project and learn more about my grandparents, my heritage, and who I come from.