LEFT TO RIGHT: Post-Simchat Torah party held in the courtyard of a shul in Iran. Inside a shul in Teheran, Iran. Sign to the shul
in Old Havana, Cuba.
pened to be a Friday night. “We went to
shul – there was one other woman there
who invited us to her friend’s home for
supper,” she recalls with amazement.
Purim in Mumbai saw them being invited to an elderly Indian gentleman’s house
for the special seudah (festive meal). “So
many people have opened their homes
without us having to prove we’re Jewish,
just [on the strength of us] saying we are,
and following a shul service,” she marvels.
The family makes a point of spending
Shabbat with the Jewish community,
wherever they find themselves.
Before they had children, the pair travelled to Jordan, Russia, China, Bangladesh,
India, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand,
southern Europe, including Albania and
Kosovo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya and the
Congo. Since having a family, in addition to
Iran and Ethiopia, they have visited Indonesia, Belize, Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, Tunisia, the United States and Turkey.
While the prime objective is to visit farflung corners of the globe and, if there happens to be a Jewish community there, to
connect with them when possible, Karen
admits the latter aspect has become far
more of a focus of their trips since visiting
Iran, adding a unique and motivating force
to their travels. She stresses that while conditions are not perfect in that country,
Jews are not ruthlessly persecuted, although they are discriminated against and
forced to send their children to school on
Shabbat. “It’s not like Egypt or Libya,
where Jews were thrown out of the country. Many have chosen to stay there.”
“We’d never had a trip like that where we
were so immersed w