The summer of '89

My dear Friends

In 1989 I went back to Israel after a break of 21 years. It was a momentous time for me-I had just been received into the Catholic Church and I was in the second year of my Hebrew degree. Now I was on a three-month study course at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I was keen to make new Christian, as well as Jewish friends, and someone told me about the House of Isaiah.

This was where some Dominican priests lived but it was also the Mass centre for a group of Hebrew Catholics-Jews who had become Catholics and who sometimes, rather poignantly, had to hide their conversion from their families. The Mass, which was in Hebrew and which was attended by French and other Catholics, was full of JOY and was held in the crypt under the house. I was to make a lot of friends there, including Rivka, a Hebrew Catholic who lent me her apartment over the summer.

To be contd
Shalom from
Sister Gila