My Polish Roots and a Ski Trip to Nowhere

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 You’d have to be exceptionally original – or maybe just completely out of it – to choose this specific week to write about something so unimportant and unrelated, right in the middle of a war. But then again, I’ve never considered myself the sharpest pencil in the box, or someone particularly in sync with the spirit of the times.

This week, I found my great-great- grandmother. She was born in 1846, which means I now have documented roots going back at least two hundred years. This probably explains why my character still has an overdose of Polish traits to this day. She was the grandmother of my Grandpa Shlomo Hipsher, a man I unfortunately never met. Grandpa passed away in his early fifties from a heart attack, just a few days before my parents' wedding. Looking back, it was a stroke of luck that they insisted on not postponing the wedding due to mourning; otherwise, I’m not sure I’d even be here to tell this story.

Anyway, Grandpa Shlomo came to "Palestine" as an apprentice tailor, armed with a needle in his hand and a fierce desire to succeed. His parents stayed behind in Częstochowa, Poland, and he found a small room in the Neve Tzedek neighborhood – back in a time when it was very dangerous for a Jew to eat hummus in Jaffa.

Both of my parents were Sabras (born in Israel). In our family, there were no "classic" Holocaust stories or uncles with blue numbers tattooed on their arms. On the other hand, we had plenty of "khaki-uniform" stories about conquering the Negev from the Tel Aviv "Hipshers," and "Palmach" campfire tales from the Haifa "Rubinovitches." But about those roots in Częstochowa? Nobody ever spoke a word.

When I had to submit a "Roots Project" back in school, my conclusion was that my roots were exceptionally short – starting on Nahalat Binyamin Street in Tel Aviv and Geula Street in Haifa. Beyond that? Silence. We certainly didn't talk about the Częstochowa days; I only first discovered them during a trip to Poland with my youngest daughter. She, by the way, can add genetic sources from Cairo to her roots, thanks to her "Pharaonic" mother, which gives her a very high-quality Egyptian Haute-Couture style.

And so, between sirens and alerts, during my regular cafe tour, I met the dear Alon Goldman. Alon is a neighbor who has been volunteering for many years to preserve the Częstochowa cemetery. He works to keep the community's heritage alive, clears weeds between the tombstones, leads heritage tours, and most importantly – he helped me locate the only family tombstone that survived in the city. From now on, we are officially "townies" – brothers-in-arms from the "good old days" in Poland.

If I suddenly felt like getting a Polish passport, Alon has access to the community's digital databases. This is a very useful tool in the sweaty race for an European passport for anyone who wants to survive in the stormy Middle East.

But for me, one blue passport is enough. And even that one, as it looks right now, is pretty useless since Ben Gurion Airport is barely functioning. Fact: the ski package we bought at Club Med for this week was cancelled. With great sadness, the ski gear was returned to the storage room until next year.

Val Thorens – you are always in our hearts! 

Let it be. 

Amen.

My first attempt at AI reconstruction of the original tombstone. These are apps that my grandmother only dreamed of in Polish, and I entertain myself with them quite often while sitting in the bomb shelter...