Lee Yaron: Larni, a caregiver from the Philippines, worked for six years caring for an 84-year-old woman from Tel Aviv. Every month the human resources company employing her paid her about 2,000 shekels [$515], which is what the woman’s National Insurance Institute benefits covered. The rest, about 2,500 shekels, was covered by her patient. 

But when the Kav Laoved Workers Hotline looked at Larni’s salary slip, it found that the agency employing her was not paying all the benefits she was entitled to, which amounted to the withholding of hundreds of shekels each month. It made no difference to Larni because her patient made up the difference. But the patient was apparently paying over the years more than she should have been because she believed the agency was paying Larni as required.

Jo-Ann Mort: A recurring theme throughout these stories is the difficulty that immigrants have in settling in a new place — not just the Mizrahi Jews, who often feel like second-class citizens and about whom Tsabari mostly writes. There’s an especially touching scene in the story “Invisible,” whose protagonist is a Filipina caregiver named Rosalynn. Her immigrant status is described along with that of the elderly Israeli in her charge, a woman she calls “Savta“ (Hebrew for grandmother), a Yemeni immigrant who tells Rosalynn how she “walked for weeks through the desert, from San’a to Aden, with a group of Jews on their way to Israel. How she too had worked in people’s homes when she arrived, cleaning and doing laundry for the rich Ashkenazi.” 

This story takes a turn that is perhaps typical in American immigrant fiction, where a relationship develops between Rosalynn and Yaniv, a friend of Savta’s grandson, who is just out of the army and comes to live in the shed behind Savta’s home. He asks Rosalynn about the beaches and surfing in the Philippines, based on what he’s heard from his friends who traveled there, but she thinks, “In the neighborhood where she had grown up nobody cared about beaches or surfing. Rosalynn tried to imagine Yaniv in her hometown, pictured him walking with her on the dirt roads, saw through his eyes the patched-up shacks, the piles of trash, the streams of dark water, her extended family all living under one roof.” 

In Israel, Rosalynn is part of a largely invisible universe of migrant workers, who fill jobs that were in some cases once filled by Palestinians, and in others, Israelis simply don't seem to want. They are often treated with contempt at best, though they and their Israeli-born children are more Israeli today than some segments of Diaspora Jewry. 

Rosalynn, who goes to meet her friends at a Filipino club in South Tel Aviv, takes the reader into their world “near the old bus station, an aging, decrepit part of Tel Aviv that was now claimed by migrant workers as their own": "The streets, bustling with discount shops, international phone booths, restaurants and street vendors, were suffused with a rich blend of aromas that didn’t typically go together: coconut, cinnamon and cloves, smoked fish, fresh ginger, toasted green coffee beans, grilled skewers of meat, sweet narghile smoke. In sidewalk cafes men drank in front of TV screens blasting action movies, and in the side streets johns slipped into red-curtained massage parlors… whenever the immigration police raided the area, the party would come to a halt, everyone lining up to produce passports and visas. Rosalynn had seen friends who worked illegally, like her, escorted into vans, from which there was no coming back….”

Rina and Moshe Hizmi

Sigal and Chanoch Shimshi

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.

HLR: “Invisible” is about Rosalynn, a Filipino caretaker who is working for an Israeli family. At the end of the story, the ring that saved a young Yemeni bride may now save Rosalynn. Tell me about this connection. Also, did you have any trepidation about characterizing Rosalynn? 

AT: My grandmother had several Filipino caretakers over the years, and one of them in particular inspired me. Like in the story, my grandmother and her caretaker were very close. It was clear they truly loved each other. I didn’t know it at the time, but I found out later my grandmother gave her caregiver a ring, just like in the story. 

Jewelry is an important part of Yemeni Jewish heritage. In Yemen, jewelry making was strictly a Jewish profession; the majority of the Jewish men were silversmiths and they were known for their fine craftsmanship. In fact, after the Jews went to Israel, Yemeni culture suffered a huge loss because they took their craft with them. My grandfather was a silversmith and my grandmother did have a few rings and jewelry left, though she had to leave most of them behind when they came to Israel. 

I always worry about appropriation, and this story was no exception, but this story and Rosalynn’s character consumed me. I’ve never believed in “write what you know.” I believe in “write what you must.” So I tried, knowing that I very well might fail. When writing fiction, you need to find that kernel of truth within you and superimpose it onto your character. With Rosalynn, I built on my experience of feeling like an outsider in a new country, being torn between homes. I also know what it feels like to be scared of the police. I worked and lived illegally for a while in my twenties. I accessed my own personal experiences and used them to write Rosalynn’s, allowing imagination and research to fill in gaps.