Batia Por Buchrai

The year is 1950, in Sha'ar Ha'aliyah. Two parents, new immigrants from Iran, living in a tent with two children aged four and two and a six-month-old baby. A cold winter Friday, heating with a Primus stove. The mother needs to take the two-year-old son whose name is Mordechai to the doctor or to the kindergarten (this detail is not entirely clear) [sic], leaves the four-year-old daughter, Yaffa, with the baby, and goes on her way. Halfway there, she hears a voice calling out: Mother, mother. She turns around and sees from a distance Yaffa running to her and trying to say something… gets closer and hears the words: fire, fire, burning. She leaves the two children and runs in the direction of the tent full of smoke. Many people are all around, neighbours, who don't know that there is a baby in the tent.

She doesn't think too much: enters the flames, pulls out the baby that meanwhile held on to the bed that’s on fire, holds on to him and runs outside. She puts him between the wings of her jacket and puts out the fire and then it becomes clear that the burns are quite serious and they need to get to the hospital as soon as possible. After a gruelling journey she arrives at Tzrifin hospital and lays down the baby in despair. She threatens that she will not move from there until they hurry up and take care of him… She remembers that she has left behind her two children and that her husband is going to return from his menial job, and she rushes to get back.

I'll save you the drama and the months of the baby's recovery and we'll move forward. One day she arrives to visit the baby, they notify her sorrowfully that there is no baby. The woman, a veteran of many battles and of suffering in her daily life, doesn't give up, and causes a commotion. She requests to see what remains, and unconvinced by their answers she goes to search through the rooms. Eventually she gets to the hallway where a number of men and women are sitting opposite a door. She opens the door and behind a screen in a bed lies the infant… she takes him and runs out of the hospital gates.

I am that baby, and the brave and dear woman is my mother, may her memory be a blessing, Batya Por Buchrai.

One day she arrives to visit the baby, and they notify her that, regretfully, there is no baby. The woman, a veteran of many battles and of suffering in her daily life, doesn't give up, and causes a commotion. She requests to see what remains, and unconvinced by their answers she goes to search through the rooms. Eventually she gets to the hallway where a number of men and women are sitting opposite a door. She opens the door and behind a screen in a bed lies the infant… she takes him and runs out of the hospital gates.