[caption id="attachment_4072" align="alignright" width="150" caption="The Arditi's study at Shavei's Machon Miriam Institute in Jerusalem"]
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When Gila Arditi’s grandfather purchased a burial vault for his family in Colombia, he made sure that the structure faced towards Jerusalem. His daughter is now living a dream her grandfather could only have imagined, moving with her husband Ariel and their two children to Israel. Gila and Ariel now study at
Shavei Israel's Machon Miriam Conversion and Return Institute in Jerusalem.
The path has not been a quick or easy one for the Arditi's. The couple, who are now in their late 60s, met when they were just teenagers. Their romance had a “West Side Story” twist: Gila’s family were artisans, while Ariel had a strong agricultural background.
Unlike Tony and Maria, though, this young couple from Bogota had a shared Jewish tradition. As
Bnei Anousim – people whose Jewish ancestors were compelled to convert to Catholicism more than five centuries ago - both families kept many of the Jewish holidays, fasted on Yom Kippur and lit candles for Shabbat.
Other customs Gila and Ariel kept growing up included salting their meat (a part of the process for making meat kosher), keeping separate sets of dishes for dairy and meat, washing hands before eating, and circumcising their infant boys. The families also sat “shiva” in a low chair when someone died, and they mourned for a year - the traditional Jewish practice.
Ariel’s large family – he has 9 siblings - went so far as move to a new village where the market takes place on a Sunday so they could refrain from working on the sabbath.
There were also some interesting interpretations: they divided the land into seven parts and each year let one rest (reminiscent of the Jewish law of
shmita). During the Passover holiday, they ate seven different kinds of soups for each of the intermediary days.
And then there was the
shofar. “Since we were young,” Ariel says,” we knew how to blow the
shofar, but it wasn’t a religious thing. During the thousand day war (a civil war that rocked in Colombia from 1899-1902), we needed to communicate between places, to tell each other if there was danger. The Jews had their own special language through the
shofar.”
Despite all these clues, the Arditi’s - like many
Bnei Anousim - didn’t make the connection between their family traditions and Judaism until much later – when Gila’s daughter began exploring her own roots.
“We always knew we were different,” Gila says. “The people in our village told us so, but for us it was totally natural.”
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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).
