“Listen, daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father’s house.” (Psalms 45:11)
I first met Chana Mejia, age 54, when she came with some of her friends to a restaurant near Tel Aviv’s boardwalk and introduced herself and friends to a tour group from Baltimore led by Rabbi Dovid Katz. She “represented” the Filipino Jewish community in Israel and delivered an inspirational message of hope and faith. Many of us were quite moved by what the soft-spoken, diminutive lady had to say, and after she spoke, Mrs. Karen Katz approached me and said, “Sam, you have to write an article about this community for the Where What When!”
* * *
Getting a hold of Chana after that evening wasn’t easy. Finally, she suggested that I come to her upcoming Chanukah party and see the community for myself. I gladly accepted the offer.
The night of the party, I lit my menorah, grabbed a bite, and hurried off to Tel Aviv, exiting from the Ayalon Freeway onto the Kibbutz Galuyot ramp, where I made a right turn onto the main thoroughfare, Lechi Street. The adjoining side streets were dimly lit. The few people I saw outside didn’t even look Jewish: an Eritrean on a bicycle and a Ukrainian dragging a pushcart. It felt like I was back in Baltimore, crossing Northern Parkway, and I was nervous. Welcome to Hatikva, a rundown, working class neighborhood in Tel Aviv. The one-story dwellings were bunched together and quite modest, but the streets and sidewalks were clean. After making a U-turn, I made a right on Hatikva Street (how apropos!) and parked down the block. Then I searched for an address – she said it was near the community center – going through a maze of dark alleyways.
Finally, entering a courtyard, I came across a well-lit bunch of set tables under a canopy and about 25 people. I had to rub my eyes for a second for a reality check. I still had this sense of cognitive dissonance. Almost all the people celebrating Chanukah here were Filipino converts to Judaism. Several women were even wearing tichels. (I could imagine them looking at me and, as per the old joke, thinking, “Funny, but he doesn’t look Jewish!”)
Most of them were in their fifties. There were a few younger people and some children. I spotted three “mixed” (native Israeli-Filipino) couples. Then I saw her, the hostess, Chana Mejia, who gave me a warm greeting. She urged me to eat her home-cooked food, reminding me of the stereotypical Yiddishe mama. There was tomato soup and spaghetti, salad and fried sole – but there were no latkes in sight! (In my mind, I contrasted these people – Jews by choice who kept strictly kosher with the cultural, gastronomical Jews who religiously have bagels and lox on Sundays and eat “kosher style” chicken soup at the treif Second Avenue Deli in Manhattan.)
Suddenly, a distinguished looking chareidi rabbi entered with his wife, and everyone perked up. It was Manchester meeting Manila. His wife took a seat with the Filipino ladies, and the rav was asked to speak. Rabbi Yisrael Vizel, originally from Manchester, now a dayan in the Karelitz Bet Din of Bnei Brak, talked about Rav Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman, zt”l, and the gadol’s constant connection and devotion to G-d. He said that Chanukah teaches us that with G-d in our midst we can overcome great odds. From the look on their faces, it was easy to surmise that the topic resonated well with the audience.
Before he left, I approached the dayan and asked him about his connection with this group. He nodded at Chana’s husband, Eliezer (originally, Joselito), who was standing nearby, and said to me: “They came to Israel to become Jewish. When their tourist visas expired, they were thrown in jail. The Misrad Hapnim (Ministry of the Interior) didn’t believe them when they said they were sincerely interested in becoming Jewish converts. They suspected that they just wanted to live in Israel for the good life. After Eliezer got out of jail, he came to me with some other likeminded Filipinos. I was sitting in my sukkah when these unexpected “guests” arrived. Eliezer begged me to help them. They wanted so badly to become Jewish. I could sense their sincerity. How could I turn them down?”
And he didn’t.
* * *
Filipinos are ubiquitous in Israel. My parents had a Filipina caregiver, Elvira. They loved her. The Philippine embassy estimates that there are approximately 31,000 Filipinos working and living in Israel, with women outnumbering men by a ratio of 6 to 1. Most of them work as caregivers; a few work in hotels and restaurants. According to Ruth Margalit, OFWs, or overseas Filipino workers, account for 10 percent of the population of the Philippines! (“Israel’s Invisible Filipino Work Force” The New York Times, May 3, 2017)
These thousands of workers leave their families behind in the Philippines for years at a time (with a brief yearly vacation to visit them) and send back money. They are the primary breadwinners. My parents’ caregiver’s children, whom she rarely saw for seven years, were raised by their grandmother.
The Philippines is a very Catholic country, and conservative Catholics, at that. (Every so often, I came across Christian missionary pamphlets in my parents’ apartment. Their caregiver wanted to make sure that they would be “saved,” I guess.) While these workers appreciate Israel as the Holy Land, their main connection to Israel is economic. Some try to remain in the country illegally, attempting to outsmart the authorities, because they like the higher standard of living.
A large percentage of the caregivers are hired by Orthodox families. It’s just a fact. And as they become almost a part of the household, learning how to make chicken soup and kugel and blintzes, they also observe, first hand, their employers’ observance of Jewish traditions and holidays. A few are so touched and inspired by what they see, that they want to convert – despite their strong Catholic upbringing.
The big question for me is ma nishtana? What makes these rare few among whom I found myself so different from all the others? I hoped I was going to find out.
Unlike many other converts, Eliezer and Chana’s path to Judaism did not start with their contact with Jewish families but much earlier – in the Philippines. Their story is even more amazing when you realize that there is no established conversion path in the Philippines. To date, only one Filipino converted there, and it was not the beginning of a trend. There is a tiny Sefardic Jewish community in the Philippines, but don’t get your hopes up! Not only do they not try to attract converts; they are wary and keep aloof from Filipino non-Jews who visit their synagogue. That makes the mystery even greater: A strongly religious Catholic society, with few Jews, and whose few Sefardic Jews eschew potential converts. What gives?
* * *
Before I left the Chanukah party, I managed to squeeze an interview out of one of the Filipinos present, a friendly chap in his thirties named Irwin Surgisis, who was now going by the name Yisrael. He is studying for conversion at Machon Meir in Jerusalem. He left behind in the Philippines (until his conversion is complete) his wife and three children – ages 11, 9, and 2. Yisrael/Irwin’s dream is to complete his studies, convert to Judaism, and bring his family to live in Israel. (I later had Yisrael as a Shabbos guest. He walked from Kiryat Moshe to Rechavia. To my surprise, his rabbis were telling him not to desecrate the Sabbath in the slightest, even though he still wasn’t Jewish! Yisrael’s hearty appetite for the gefilte fish was a sure sign to me that he was definitely on his way!)
Yisrael’s father, Zihandres Sirgisis, was a Bible scholar and a member of the Seventh Day Adventist church. More than that, he was a spiritual seeker. Not content to live by rote and on automatic pilot, his restless soul gave him no respite until his heart told him that he had found the truth and knew why he was put on this Earth. He began noticing contradictions and inconsistencies in the New Testament. He wanted answers. He confronted and debated ministers, Catholic priests, and anyone who would listen. He began turning to Judaism for answers. He began attending the Sefardic synagogue in Manila. The congregants were less than thrilled by his presence. In fact, there was a cool hostility towards him. He persevered. He prayed there and made use of the Jewish library in the shul. He was basically on his own. He began writing pamphlets and articles about what he had learned: pamphlets about the authenticity of Judaism.
Eventually, Zihandres made the decision to travel to far off Israel to formally undergo conversion. He went in 1998 and began the process. Only a few months before he would finish his studies, however, Zihandres took sick and flew back to his native land to recover. He died shortly thereafter, and his dream was never realized.
But Zihandres’ journey was not in vain. He started a chain reaction. He influenced his son, Irwin, who went with his father to synagogue for the first time in 1982. Then, some time during the 1980s, Zihandres met a woman (who would later change her name to Ruth) in the office of some Christian institution. Ruth was a Catholic, a dynamic soul, who also had gnawing questions. She got into a conversation with Zihandres, which led to many more. He spoke to her about Judaism, and in 1994, Ruth flew to Israel and eventually converted to Judaism at the age of 65!
Zihandres influenced Ruth, and Ruth, in turn, began to influence her “nephew,” who would later become Eliezer Mejia. (Ruth was Eliezer’s mother’s cousin.) Eliezer, then 18 years old, had moved to Manila to study pharmacology at the university and stayed in his “Aunt” Ruth’s apartment.
“My ‘aunt’ was a very religious woman, and she was always seeking the truth,” Eliezer tells me. “She went from one Christian denomination to another, until she met Irwin’s father.”
Ruth showed Eliezer some of the pamphlets Zihandres had given her, and Eliezer also spoke to Zihandres, when he occasionally visited Ruth.
While studying in university, “Eliezer” became friendly with “Chana.” He, in turn, influenced her. Chana was a “born again” Christian, all fired up and very religious. The two began dating, and Chana learned about Eliezer’s desire to become Jewish and his dream to practice Judaism in Eretz Yisrael. They didn’t talk much about religion in the beginning, but they respected each other’s beliefs and didn’t try to change each other. Chana, although a born-again, was also a seeker. As she listened to Eliezer and listened to her own soul, she slowly began to identify with him and make his dream her own. By the last semester of their studies, they got married.
By then, they both knew that the Philippines would not be their permanent home and that this would not be their only marriage ceremony. They had no choice but to get married in a church because of family pressure – and also so that their future children could be registered in the public schools. That was the law in the Philippines! At their wedding, they ate at a table all by themselves to avoid the treif food.
Eliezer and Chana set up a home. They kept kosher to the best of their ability. That meant that they were going to avoid pork and only eat chicken. They would not eat at other people’s homes. Eliezer operated an animal feed business; most of the feed was for hogs. Their families chided them: “You won’t eat pork, but you help others do so!” Chana and her husband also worked in her family’s pharmacy. They studiously avoided going to church – to their parents’ consternation – and were on guard when their children came home from public school, their heads filled with lessons about Christian dogma.
* * *
“And Ruth said, ‘Do not entreat me to leave you, to return from following you, for wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your G-d my G-d. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. So may the Lord do to me and so may He continue, if anything but death separate me and you.’ And she saw that she was determined to go with her; so she stopped speaking to her.” (Ruth, 1:16-18)
It was my second visit to the Mejias. Chana had been incommunicado for weeks due to illness. She was at the stove. There was a young couple visiting them from the chareidi city of Elad. He was Ashkenazi, she was Filipina. They dropped by to shmooze and grab a bite. Soon after they left, Chana’s daughter and her husband came with their toddler. Second shift for supper. I looked on the shelf on the wall. There were a few books – Sabbath Shiurim by Rabbi M. Miller and Shemirath Shabbath by Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth (in English) caught my eye. Chana’s husband was wearing a T-shirt and sporting a leather kippa. Chana had a tichel covering her hair. It was about 9 p.m., and it felt like their night was just beginning.
The Mejias were upper-middle-class in their native land. Now they both work as cleaners. For people who are on a spiritual journey, what you do for a living is nowhere nearly as important as what you do to attain a spiritual life. Parnassa is clearly a means to a higher end. They have no regrets. “It is such a privilege for us to live a Jewish life in the Land of Israel,” they both emphatically tell me. And even the cleaning has a spiritual component. “When I clean, I am thinking that this money will go for my son’s yeshiva education. This salary for my daughter’s midrasha,” Chana said. Chana also cooks for her non-observant employer. “I try to cook all their Shabbat food by Friday, so that it will minimize their chilul Shabbat,” she tells me.
I inquire whether I can ask her a few questions. She agrees, and I begin:
“There are thousands of Filipinos in Israel, yet converts to Judaism number only 100. What makes you so different?” I ask.
“Oh, I don’t know Sam. But I sometimes wonder at the stories I heard in my family. I am one of seven siblings. We grew up in a rural village outside of Manila. Our family had a dairy farm. I remember that one time, when I was a child, my mother told me that when the redeemer comes, we will have this special red cow that will be important. ‘But mother,’ I asked, ‘we have a reddish, brownish cow. Isn’t that good enough?’ ‘No, my dear,’ my mother answered. ‘It must be completely red, with no other colors.’ I also remember other times that my parents spoke about things that sounded an awful lot like taharat hamishpacha (the laws of family purity).”
Chana continued: “After I came to Israel, I called my 80-year-old aunt, my mother’s sister, back in the Philippines and asked her if she remembers any stories about savta and saba. My aunt told me that she remembers my grandfather going outside to pray at 4 o’clock in the morning, and he would first wrap himself in something that looked like a blanket. One time, she secretly followed him as he went outside to pray and didn’t understand who he was praying to. He kept saying ‘Ad-o-nei.’ Who is that? she wondered.
“Another thing my elderly aunt told me: She remembers that her parents and siblings refrained from milking the cows on Saturdays. She also remembers that her parents would not let the neighbors borrow any of their work animals on Saturday. The animals had to rest.”
“What do these stories mean to you, Chana?” I asked. “The Philippines were ruled by Spain for over 300 years. Do you think that your ancestors were Marranos?”
“The whole story of our attempt to convert was fraught with such difficulties. It was so hard. You know my husband was even in jail because he was here illegally. I asked Hashem, why is this happening to us? You know how much we love You.
“So, I was interested in these stories to answer a question I had for myself – why was I so determined? But in the end, it didn’t matter to me where I came from. I was Jewish, and that was that. I stopped being interested in these stories.”
* * *
Here is the story of their journey to conversion (with some of the material culled from an article about the Mejias in the Israeli publication Penima [Sivan 5772].)
While the Mejias were in the Philippines, their “Shulchan Aruch” was a book that Aunt Ruth gave to them. It was full of mistakes. Chana put three loaves on the table to honor the Sabbath and put a white table cloth on the table only on Shabbos day. Chana also used to awake to recite the Tikun Chatzot! But Chana and her husband’s main prayer was that they would eventually merit to go and live in Eretz Yisrael.
After saving up money for years to go to the Promised Land, it was time to go! Eliezer went first, in 1996, with his now-Jewish Aunt Ruth, to lay the groundwork for the rest of the family that would follow. Chana was six months pregnant and was running the animal feed business and raising the kids by herself as well as helping in the pharmacy.
Eliezer, Ruth, Ruth’s sister, and a friend arrived at Ben Gurion airport on erev Rosh Hashanah. Eliezer came on a two-week tourist visa. After the chagim, Aunt Ruth took Eliezer to Rabbi Beni Chen of Har Nof. He was formerly the Rav of the Sefardic community in Manila, who had helped Ruth to convert. He told Eliezer that it would be very difficult to help him, because Eliezer’s visa had expired. To try to remedy that, he found Eliezer employment with a religious family. That apparently didn’t solve the visa problem.
Eliezer had another problem: He couldn’t handle full-time work and full-time conversion studies at the same time. It was just too much. And he desperately wanted to bring his family to Israel. With the cost of an airfare to Israel the equivalent of a full year’s salary in the Philippines, Eliezer dropped the conversion issue for the present, and from the salary of his illegal job he sent money back to his wife.
A year-and-a-half later, Aunt Ruth returned to the Philippines to bring Chana and her three children to Israel, along with Irwin’s father. After they landed at Ben Gurion, immigration officials asked her where they were planning to live and what kind of work she was planning to do. Chana was stunned. She was not expecting the question and cried. She and her three charges were immediately sent back, while her husband was still in the Holy Land, avoiding the authorities because his travel visa had expired. He never got even a moment’s opportunity to see them.
When Chana landed back in the Philippines, she was mocked by her neighbors. “It looks like your G-d isn’t interested in you,” they said. The Mejias had given up everything before they moved to Israel, and now Chana and her kids returned to nothing (but ridicule). Not even a bed to sleep on. (Compare their ordeal with American Jews making aliyah with Nefesh b’Nefesh.) She had to start all over from scratch.
After spending a few difficult months in Manila, Chana took her children with her back to her husband’s home town. The neighbors had one rhetorical question for her: Where is your G-d? Chana was alone and the object of scorn.
The children asked her what kind of work their daddy was doing in Israel. She told them (jokingly) that he was a policeman. That was ironic, because Eliezer dreaded the Israeli police arresting him!
Six months later, Chana scraped together enough money to buy a ticket for herself and her youngest child, leaving the two older children with her sister. When they landed again at Ben Gurion, Chana whispered a prayer: “Hashem, if You won’t let us enter Eretz Yisrael, they will mock us again and continue to say that You don’t exist, that You (the Jewish G-d) are not real. But we do believe in You. You are our G-d!”
She again approached the dreaded immigration officials. They asked her question after question. And then something amazing happened. For no apparent logical reason, they allowed Chana and her child to enter the country!
* * *
The ensuing years were tough. In the beginning, the Mejias were pining for the two children they left behind in the Philippines. And for the next seven years they were rebuffed from starting the conversion process time and again, the Rabbanut refused to accept them for giyur (conversion) based on a technicality – they didn’t possess a teudat zehut (government identification card) because they were not citizens. It was a Catch 22. They couldn’t become citizens because they weren’t Jewish. They couldn’t become Jewish because they weren’t citizens!
The older children finally arrived, and a sympathetic reporter from the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot pulled strings to get the kids registered in a public school. When they turned 16, they were the first Mejias to become Israeli citizens because of their school affiliation!
After seven frustrating years, the family gave up on the Rabbanut and turned to the chareidi Bais Din of Rabbi Karelitz to learn Judaism, although their conversions were not recognized by the governmental authorities at that time.
The Penima article goes on to relate that, nine years ago, when Chana was 45 years old, she and her husband finally converted. They had been in the Holy Land 10 years. They were now going to be married with chuppa and kiddushin! The day of the wedding, Chana went to the mikva. A few minutes before she was about to immerse herself she asked for her wedding gown, only to find out that her son, who came to the wedding in a taxi, had left the suitcase that contained the gown in the cab – and the taxi couldn’t be tracked down!
She turned again to G-d: “I have been asking You for years for the fulfillment of this cherished moment – that when I marry I will wear a pretty gown – even not so expensive, mind You. But if this is what You want, I am ready to go to the chuppa with just my regular clothes.”
The attendant at the mikva saw Chana crying and told her that she would lend her a white blouse and headscarf. Chana immersed, her tears mingling with the waters of the mikva.
The chasana left an indelible impression on everyone. The sanctity was palpable. The attendees, Jews and non-Jews alike, were astounded. And some of the Filipinos who were there were so struck by what they saw that they decided – then and there – that they wanted to become Jewish and have a wedding like that of the Mejias!
From that moment on, the Mejias became a beacon of light for other Filipinos who wanted to convert. Their home became an unofficial community center where like-minded people could gather, celebrate the holidays, get inspiration – and, if need be, to commiserate. All of Chana and Eliezer’s children have married Orthodox Jews, and they also have nachas from their grandchildren.
Let the scoffers scoff and let the naysayers say they’re crazy. For the Mejias, every obstacle was just another strengthening of their emuna (faith). The story just doesn’t get better than that.
“Upon the righteous and upon the devoted; upon the remainder of Your people the House of Israel…upon the righteous converts, and upon us, please G-d, arouse Your mercy. Grant a good reward to those who sincerely trust in Your name. And as we aspire to attain their degree of faith, place our lot with them, and we will never be ashamed for not fully recognizing Your guidance…” Birchat Hatzadikim, from the Shmoneh Esrei from the Aram Soba Siddur, translated and elucidated by Rabbi Moshe Antebi.
