Miriam Pena – From the desert to the Promised Land
Miriam Pena
Miriam Pena was raised in a devout Catholic home in Cartagena, Colombia, the vivacious 30-year-old had a different, simpler dream – to visit the Middle East and see the desert. Israel seemed like as good a starting point as any.
But as her plans began taking shape back in Colombia, Miriam realized she wanted to join the Jewish people. “At first, I didn’t believe it myself,” Miriam says. “It’s something I just felt in my heart, like I’d been waiting for this for so many years.”
Getting to this point, however, has not been easy. When she was five years old, her mother abandoned Miriam and her sister, leaving the two at the door to the school they were attending. The headmistress took them in and raised them as her own children.
Although Miriam says she always believed in G-d, she bristled at attending church, and quarreled with her adopted mother over the subject frequently. When she grew older, she moved to the Colombian capital of Bogota where she worked as a waitress and singer (back in her hometown, she had appeared in the “Miss Popular Cartegena” festival and even cut a CD).
But she still dreamed of visiting the desert and arrived in Israel shortly afterward. Her first stop: Kibbutz Tzelim, in the heart of Israel’s southern Negev region. “The desert was even more beautiful than I imagined it for all those years, she says. “I just love the mountains in Eilat. It looks like the Grand Canyon!”
Truth be told, Miriam’s transformation wasn’t entirely out of the blue. Even before she came, she had started to study Hebrew in Bogota. Deep in her heart, she was already on her way.
After trying out a few other kibbutzim, Miriam moved to Jerusalem and began helping an elderly woman, particularly in the kitchen. “That’s where I started to learn what it really is to be a Jew,” she explains.
She later returned to Colombia for a visit, only to discover that her new beliefs were too difficult for her family to accept. “In a certain sense, my family is no longer my family,” she laments.
Today, Miriam lives in a suburb of Jerusalem “in a two and a half room apartment with a garden,” she says. She has a job with a travel agency arranging visits to Israel for visitors from Australia and Singapore.
In the afternoons, she studies at Shavei Israel’s Machon Miriam Institute for Conversion and Return in Jerusalem, working towards the day that her dream of becoming Jewish is fulfilled.
In the meantime, Israel and her process towards Judaism have profoundly changed Miriam…for the good. “Before I came here, I was a really freaky person,” she explains. “I was in the music industry and I liked to go to parties. But nothing was filling my heart. I didn’t know where I was going. Now, I’m very organized – with my studies, my life and my work. When you start a Jewish life, you get an orientation, a direction. Judaism is organizing you this way.”
Miriam hints that she may also get back into the recording business, but this time making Jewish music for women. Despite the challenges she faces, Miriam says she is happy and finds her life exciting. “I always say – when there’s a stone in the middle of a pool, I will jump.” The next jump, with G-d’s help, will enroll Miriam as a full-fledged member of the tribe.