בְנֵי־לֹ֣וט
Start your engines! Getting ready to March with .@NYGovCuomo earlier today at #NYCPrideMarch #NYCPride #NYCpride2017 #Pride2017 #Pride pic.twitter.com/OGnc7Pgwd8— Gil Quiniones (@GQenergy) June 25, 2017
In the Messianic Age, both the nations of Ishmael and Esav will convert to Judaism.— Torah Lectures (@TorahLectures) June 28, 2016
RUTH MARGALIT: There are many stories of Filipino caregivers who have converted to Judaism
@Fyrasec one of my friends is a filipino who converted to Judaism
— Trout (@SteakInTheBoot) 6 de diciembre de 2015
Other labels you might want to know: disabled, third gen mixed-race Filipino-American, queer, ex Evangelical now converting to Judaism.— Lev Mirov (@thelionmachine) March 17, 2016
Angelica Berrie, Pres Russell Berrie Fdtn, shares Filipina background/influence on phil; grew up w/ nuns; converted to Judaism @womengiving— Asian Giving (@asiangiving) March 10, 2011
The Filipino crew in ISRAEL! @ Ben Gurion International Airport (TLV) (נמל התעופה בן גוריון) http://t.co/AMOHp0gxMf— Xley Miguel (@xleymiguel) September 7, 2013
An #IDFinPhilippines soldier shares a light moment w/ #Bogo pupils. Israel is helping Pinoys & doing it w/ a smile! pic.twitter.com/w8DvlEgdz0— PIA CEBU (@CebuInfocen) November 19, 2013
Just found out that #Israel does not require #pinoys to get a visa to visit. Interdasting. Are we honorary Jews or something?— Iyan Sommerset (@IyanSommerset) September 12, 2015
There's a Jewish Association of the Philippines. "Visit Your Synagogue. We are WIFI." -- http://t.co/khzBCr8W I'm converting. Shalom!— V (@raccattapalle) November 9, 2011
I told Jericho we were going to synagogue. He asked "We're getting sinagang?" (a Filipino stew for all the non-Flips out there)— Jericho and Silas (@JerichoSmile) April 16, 2011
Some of prettiest women I've ever seen have been Filipina and I'm not being biased lol some of them are really just beautiful— mj (@acinomenaj) June 2, 2016
The beauty of Filipino #diaspora is I have a relative in every corner of the world! #GlobalGoals 🌐🌎🌏🌍— Bass❣LoveTogether✘ (@baltx2022) June 14, 2016
filipino and australian is such a beautiful mix i mean just look at james— ️️ (@reidIustre) June 7, 2016
Susan F. Quimpo: Tell me about yourself. Where did you grow up? What is your family like/ Did you grow up in a predominantly Filipino community?
Olivia Kardos: I grew up in New Jersey. When I was 12, we moved to Pennsylvania; then I attended college at UC Santa Cruz, then UCLA. My Dad is Hungarian Jewish. My Mom is Chinese-Filipino from Echague, Manila.
In New Jersey, my older brother and I went to a traditional Jewish school because the public school system was really bad. My Mom was very much against sending us to Catholic school. So we went to this Jewish school that was supposedly a good school. But by the time I left that school in the 7th grade, I hated it.
In my house, we really did not practice Judaism. Like, to this day, I probably know more about Judaism and Hebrew than my Dad. Because the school was very religious, we had to lie a lot. Like, you’re not supposed to be driving around during the Sabbath, but we did — so we had to lie about what we did on weekends.
My Mom would drive us to school, and she’d give us bacon and sausage sandwiches in the car for breakfast. And when we got to school, my brother and I would try to pick the bacon from our teeth before morning prayer. Then I just thought it was part of life, but when I got older, I really resented the school. That’s why to this day, I’m still not into organized religion.
Susan F. Quimpo: When did you first realize you were Filipino?
Olivia Kardos: I guess it was the first day of kindergarten at the Jewish school in New Jersey. And it wasn’t just skin color either. I remember my Mom dropped me off: She got me really excited; she built it (school) up trying to get me ready for it. I didn’t go to a preschool before that so it was my first formal school. I was expecting school to be fun. But when I got there, I was the only one who looked Asian, very Asian — bucked teeth, black hair with bangs. My brother was in the same school but he was older and I think was a little embarrassed by me.
Susan F. Quimpo: Did you experience overt manifestations of racism or discrimination?
Olivia Kardos: There was certainly racism in the Jewish school I went to. In Judaism, if you married a non-Jew, traditionally, he or she would have to convert to Judaism because it was taboo to marry outside the religion. My mom never did that and my Dad never expected her to. So every year the school principal would call our house to ask my Dad, “So did your wife convert yet?” And my Dad would say, “No and I’m not planning on it either.” And the principal would say, in a really nasty way, “So how much are you donating to the (school) fund this year?” I didn’t get financial aid even if I was qualified for it.
I remember that my brother Josef was barred from leading the morning prayers in school. You see, all the boys were looking forward to their bar mitzvah (a ceremony for admitting a Jewish boy as a member of the adult community, usually at the age of 13). After your bar mitzvah, you were given the honor to lead the morning prayers. It was a special chant, and Josef was really good at it; everyone thought he had a nice voice. One day, one of the teachers from the school, a Middle Eastern Jew, came to our house to talk to my parents. He said that all the teachers and students threatened to walk out of the morning prayers the following day if Josef were to lead it. He said it was because Josef and I were just “converted” Jews. We were the only converted Jews in the entire school. (Jewish lineage is passed through one’s mother, therefore Olivia and Josef had to be “converted” because their mother never became Jewish.) The teacher was sincerely apologetic and told my father he would support him if he decided to fight the school. My Dad was very angry and wanted to file a complaint. But my brother Josef didn’t want to attract more attention, so he told my father to let it go. But we all knew it was a big deal.
The kids at the school were mostly cool, it was just the parents and teachers. I remember one time, we were having a birthday party at home and this kid came over. In my house we did not eat kosher food. So my mom prepared paper plates because if you’re Jewish, you’re not supposed to eat off plates that had been served non-kosher food on. One mom sent her kid to our house with her own snacks, lunch and her own utensils. And the mom said, “So we won’t trouble you.” She had attitude about it. Who was she kidding? We’re not stupid!
Susan F. Quimpo: What made you decide to come to the Philippines and stay here for year of study at UP? Why was it time?
Olivia Kardos: I think of the value of context. I remember coming here for my Lolo’s funeral with my Mom and her siblings. And she was “Ate.” Her siblings just handed her their passports and plane tickets so she’d deal with all that at the airport. Some of her siblings are grandparents already — all very responsible adults in their 50s. Mom’s 64, and she’s not even a grandparent. And here they were, relying on her to be “Ate,” asking her to buy things for them in Quiapo. I remember they were picking a stone (lapida) for the grave, and after all the discussion and excitement, she just picked one and said, “Tapos na ang kuwento (End of the story)!” And everyone just gave in, and bowed their heads. And I said, “Yeah Mom!” It was so empowering to see her that way! I think, just living among white people, I saw her as more timid, more submissive. Everyone would say, oh your Mom is so cute. That’s nice, but it also has so many implications — that she’s Asian, submissive, docile. And here, she was so bold!
And everyday things — like walking on the street, I see this (street) kid who is seven years old and is a genius compared to me, simply because he knows how to survive. Maybe he can’t recite theories on race and class, but he could outsmart me in a second. So context, putting it all in context.
Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim 87b: The Holy One exiled Israel among the nations only in order that converts might join them.
SARAH HERSHENSON: Every year, a number of Filipino women who come to work in Israel convert to Judaism and are here to stay.
Amnon Ramon: We can see this is a growing phenomenon and it has changed the face of Christianity in the Holy Land.
In the Holy Land, a changed Christian world: The schedules for Mass at the two Roman Catholic churches in Jaffa, on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, reveal a change that has dramatically, if quietly, altered the face of Christianity in the Holy Land.
The two Masses in Arabic for the town’s native Arab Christian population are outnumbered by four attended mainly by Filipina caregivers.
Father Ramzi Sidawi, an Arab Catholic from Jerusalem, is the parish priest in Jaffa. Outside the church windows, he said, he now listens every day to children from Africa and the Philippines playing in Hebrew, the language of their schools and their parents’ employers.
On a recent Sunday, the chapel at the Ratisbonne monastery in downtown Jerusalem rang with the sound of hymns in Tagalog, one of the languages of the Philippines. Most of the worshippers were women who serve as caregivers for elderly Israelis.
There were 5,000 Filipino workers in Israel when Father Angelo Beda Ison, a Manila-born Franciscan who tends to the local Filipino community, arrived in 1991. Today there are 40,000 to 100,000.
The past two decades have seen one of the most significant influxes of Christians into the Holy Land since the Crusades, and it has created a wholly new Christian landscape shaped by the realities of Israel.
For the first time, the Catholic Church has to deal with Catholic kids who are assimilating into a Jewish majority. There are now several thousand children born to foreign workers who speak Hebrew as a first language, celebrate Jewish holidays with their classmates and are subject, like children everywhere, to the pull of the mainstream.
Catholics are not the only Church dealing with demographic shifts. Immigrants from the former Soviet Union began moving to Israel en masse in the early 1990s. Among them were an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 practicing Christians, mostly Orthodox. So the Russian Orthodox Church now holds services in Hebrew every week in Jerusalem. The tiny Ethiopian Orthodox Church, too, has been dealing with its own newcomers: asylum seekers from Eritrea reaching Israel in increasing numbers, smuggled in from Egypt by Bedouin.
These disparate groups of Christians share one trait — they have gone almost unnoticed by the majority of Israelis.
DAVID W. CHEN: Hillcrest now has Rockland’s highest percentage of African-Americans and Asians, plus a growing number of Hispanic residents, making it one of the state’s most diverse communities.
But the shifts also show how racial change, particularly in sprawling suburbs, can occur not just relatively amicably but sometimes without attracting much notice.
Even within Ramapo, Hillcrest is often overlooked. To the south is Spring Valley, a diverse hub grappling with overcrowded housing and economic redevelopment, while to the southwest and northeast, respectively, are the Orthodox and Hasidic enclaves of Monsey and New Square.
Still, most residents seem genuinely surprised and grateful that Hillcrest has changed so much with so little fuss – so far.
Thelma DeGuzman immigrated directly from the Philippines, joining relatives already in the area. She saw immediately that Hillcrest differed from her expectations of an American suburb.
“I thought there were only tall white people because of what I see in the movies,’ said Ms. DeGuzman, a nursing aide. ‘But then I said, 'Oh, my God! This is like the Philippines! So many Filipinos!”
@tatancast I've determined that I am Filipino and my wife is Israeli. Thanks for the insights!
— JoeAm (@societyofhonor) ינואר 1, 2016
Steven G. Vegh: His congregants include Darva Gruber, who has Filipino, Chinese and Spanish roots. Growing up Catholic in Hawaii, "I didn’t know any Jews," she said.
Her family moved to New Jersey, where she met and married her Jewish high school sweetheart. She agreed to raise their children Jewish.
In Norfolk, Gruber enrolled the children in Hebrew school, then started attending Temple Israel’s services and studying Judaism.
"What attracted me to it was, it was very welcoming." Gruber converted in 1996 and had her bat mitzvah in 2001.
As an Asian American, Gruber said being an ethnic minority in a religious minority is no big deal for her.
"I’m used to that environment. I’ve always been the different one, unless I get to go to Asia."
Mary Ann Miller, who is part Filipino, also converted after marrying her Jewish husband, John, who has Moroccan roots.
Though she was called a "shiksa" by someone who didn’t know the word disparages gentile women, Miller said she feels at home at Temple Israel. (The speaker later apologized.)
"You’d think I’d feel uncomfortable being Filipino in a Jewish synagogue, but absolutely not."
Judy Maltz: Using the special Yemenite chant he learned decades ago as a young boy, Moshe Hizmi recites the Haftara portion that follows the weekly Torah reading, as a hush falls over Beit Daniel this Shabbat. And in the chair behind him sits his proud wife – a Filipino convert. Wrapped in a colorfully embroidered prayer shawl, Rina, as she is now known, follows the reading diligently from her own prayer book. “It’s because of her that I’ve come back to Judaism,” concedes Moshe over the Kiddush lunch that follows the service.
Moshe and Rina are one of about half a dozen middle-aged couples at this Tel Aviv synagogue who share an unusual profile: The women are all Filipinos who converted to Judaism through the Reform movement, and their husbands or partners are native-born Israelis who grew up in Orthodox or traditional homes, but ultimately abandoned religious practice, only to return to it under the influence of their Jewish-by-choice wives.
“I preferred Reform Judaism because it’s modern, the women sit with the men, and you can dress normally,” says Sigal Shimshi
As is the case with most of these couples, this is chapter two for Sigal and Chanoch. She has three children from a previous marriage, and he has two. Like all these Filipino women, Sigal came to Israel to work as a caregiver. Six years into her stay in the country, she met Chanoch, who was introduced to her through a common friend. “I had put the word out that I was interested in meeting a Filipino woman,” recounts Chanoch. “I guess my gut instinct told me this would be a good thing for me, and a friend gave me her number.”
They’ve been together for eight years, and last year Sigal completed her conversion to Judaism. “She’s by now more religious than me,” boasts Chanoch. “You should see her. She won’t leave the house Friday night without lighting candles.”
He and Sigal attend services regularly at Beit Daniel on Friday nights and Saturday mornings. Together with the other mixed Filipino-Israeli couples, they have Shabbat dinners almost every week. “We have a WhatsApp group so that the women can coordinate who’s bringing what,” explains Sigal. “We leave the men out of that.”
Moshe and Rina Hizmi, who converted two years ago, met at a Tel Aviv nightclub and have been married for almost eight years. He has two children from a previous marriage, and she has one.
Moshe, who was raised in a traditional home, was completely non-observant by the time the two of them met. That is why Rina initially didn't tell him when she first ventured into Beit Daniel.
“We had been together for quite a few years at that point,” she recounts, “and we’d always go to his family for Rosh Hashanah and for Passover, but I never understood what was going on. That got me thinking about converting, and a friend of mine recommended the Reform movement.”
After attending Shabbat services on her own a few times, Rina suggested that Moshe join her. He was initially reluctant, as he recalls. “What have I got to do with the Reform movement?” was his response.
But deep down, he admits, he was quite moved. “It made me happy that she wanted to become Jewish,” he says.
His wife’s successful integration into Israeli society, observes her proud husband, goes beyond her smooth transition to Judaism.
“She knows how to cook up a mean Yemenite meat soup,” he boasts.
— Ilån Bεn Zıon (@IlanBenZion) דצמבר 2, 2015
Welcome to the Seli-Gerson Mini-Mart!
Here you can pick out some stuff for us! There’s even a little “wishing well” where you can donate to the Filipino-Jewish Relief Fund (aka Laundry, Groceries, and Starting-a-Family Fund for Krys and Phillp).
Thank you for helping us start a little life together. We are forever grateful.
Love,Krys and Phillip
Bnei Lot are of an ancient origin. In the migratory tradition of Ruth begun more than two millennia ago, a remnant of David and Solomon migrated into Maritime Southeast Asia which comprises what is now Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, The Philippines, and Singapore, as well as Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, with a sizeable minority of Malays migrating back to their tribal allotments in Sephardic Judah, besides Terrestrial and Figurative Jordan.
