Helen Stransky - January 31, 2008
Family
And the members of your family who now identify as Jews?
Yes. The ones that went--they went first of all to New York and then when they won a lottery there in New York and with that money they went to Australia. And um, they--what's their names? Yeah, the identify as Jews and they come and they spend six months a year in Australia and then they go on to the Czech Republic and spend, I don't know, about six weeks there um, they uh, and then uh, they have a home in Ma'alot and family in Maa'lot. They have a son who is married to a Syrian Jew and they have three children and then uh, that part of the family they also have a son who has become an Orthodox rabbi in East London and he's building a home here in Bayit VeGan.
You have a very international family.
I do.
Uh, you were--you said you were in Canada or the United States for thir...thirteen years? Is that...
No, Los Angeles for thirteen years but that was when I, when I went down--I got a--my uncle and grandmother died and um, or my grandmother did and I was living with a third foster family in Canada and then my mother's sister in Los Angeles invited me to--I was age twenty two--she invited me to come and live with them in and my brother in Los Angeles. So, my brother and I went and we were there for about six months and then since my uncle was a strict disciplinarian and we hadn't received that type of education we left. And um, I was uh, my, my brother uh, found--well, he was a marriageable age and he found a gal and he went back Canada and--to live there. He loves it there. He's got...
And you stayed on the West Coast.
Um, I stayed in Los Angeles for thirteen years. Um, I would say economic um, I wanted to turn a better living than I was earning in Canada. It wasn't--the people that had raised me were dead so where was I going to go?
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