Meeting my Jewish cousin

Second Cousin Miriam (Bock) Spielman 22/02








This afternoon I arranged to meet Miriam at her flat she shares with her husband of 62 years, Pinchas. Both are in their late 80s. It is in a retirement home housed in an old hotel 10 mins from the centre of Jerusalem. They are both very active and vivacious people even in their late eighties with a huge family and greatly respected
within their community.They hold barmitzvahs
as well as doing alot of charity work.

I tell her about my recent visit to Berlin. I tell her about the house I visited there and painted which I hoped was her grandfather Jacob Bock's. It turns out it was! She lived in 34 Zeitenstrasse for some years with him, her mother Frida and older sister Ruth. It was given as a wedding present to her by her father. Miriams story is bitter sweet, filled with sadness but also incredible optimism and faith. She is deeply religious and we talk at length about each of our views on it. In fact during the meeting I am so overwhelmed by the questions she asks me about my beliefs and my upbringing I can't focus on the painting. She sees her life and religion as one. She cannot conceive of not having family. She is mother to 3 children and Grandmother/Great Grandmother to over 40 grandchildren! Its a revelation and so alien to my upbringing as only child. We look through albums which I later show to my father. He's never see a picture of his Grandfather Jacob Bock or his father when he is younger. We both come to terms with these new discoveries.

In Israel

My visit to Israel with my father, Jack, has so far taken us to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and tomorrow up north to the Golan heights and onwards. We are 7 days into our travels to meet our relatives, Miriam and Pinchas Spielman (my second cousins) and to learn more about the life and history of Israel. Perhaps its ambitious to do all this in 10 days! However it is also somehow a symbolic gesture of marking the death of my grandmother and to reconnect with a place we both, at different times, only touched the surface of. My father came here 50 years ago and me with my grandma 14 years ago.

Shabat (Friday's Sabbath) at the infamous Western Wall in Jerusalem


There was something very mesmerizing about seeing all these people praying (some in deep rapture) together. The haunting sounds of the muslim call to prayer mixed with Christian church bells and Jewish singing and praying created a scene unparalleled to anywhere I'd experienced before. The Western wall is the most holy of places in the world for Jews yet it is just a wall. It is location that makes it so Holy. Walls are a huge theme in the history of this place. Certain walls are considered holy, some walls divide religions or nations but others have also protected and supported communities.

Some of our time here has been expertly guided by Miriam's son, Daniel. He's given us an overview of Jewish history and Israel's history (no small task!!) which we are still both trying to take in and remember. Miriam's family are orthodox Jews and to our amazement their immediate relations amount to over 80! Daniel has 9 children and has brother has 12. We hope to go to one of Daniel's son's 1st year graduation from the army on wednesday evening.
Today I will meet his mother Miriam, to discuss her memories of her family both in pre war Berlin and her evacuation from there and how this led her moving to Israel Israel.


The sun, med sea and towering hotels of Tel Aviv where we both caught the unseasonably hot sun