Miriam and Chaim Madar

My parents, Miriam and Chaim Madar made Aliya from Yemen in 1945 to Ra’anana with 3 children, including Shulamit who was five years old. That year (I don’t have the exact date) Shulamit was admitted to Hadassah hospital in Tel Aviv with stomach aches. My mother stayed with her throughout her hospitalization and according to my mother, the child was alert and constantly communicated with her. She was hospitalized for 2 days. Per my sister Shulamit’s request my mother went down to the adjacent kiosk to get her something, and when she returned the child was not in her bed. In reply to my mother’s question where she was, she was told she [the child] had passed away. My mother asked to see Shulamit and when she was not answered she did the most natural and human thing – she screamed and cried over her child. Instead of comforting her, they kicked her out of the room towards the stairs, and my mother rolled down the stairs and was severely injured. Needless to say her injury was of no concern to anyone.
My father and brother in law arrived there shortly after and went to ask about the child. They were told she was buried in Nachalat Yitzchak cemetery in Tel Aviv. My parents went straight to the cemetery, looking for a fresh grave, and of course and according to a testimony of one of the cemetery workers, there was no burial of children that day.
My parents and brother in law returned to the hospital and asked to see the child. For heaven’s sake: this was a five-year-old child whose parents are supposed to sit Shiva on. They asked for hospitalization records and for a burial certificate with a burial plot indication. The staff at the hospital was not cooperative. On the contrary: they sent thugs who kicked them out of the hospital compound. My parents returned home, heartbroken without their beloved daughter, and with uncertainty as to whether they should sit Shiva on her. My mother absolutely refused to sit Shiva on the child. To her last day she claimed her daughter was taken away from her and was not dead. Bear in mind this was 1945, there was no state yet and no one to turn to, and just like that a girl, who had loving and caring parents, was brutally taken by beastly persons without conscience or human quality to them.
This awful claim about our mothers being irresponsible and lacking warmth for their children is unforgivable. I would take them to the scaffold just for saying this. Our mothers were the epitome of goodness, of kindness, of compassion and of caring that a child could dream of, and we were blessed to have such mothers. If these horrible people had mothers like ours the world would be filled with compassion and would not contain such evil, that no devil could create.
My parents, Miriam and Chaim Madar, passed away grief-stricken and in pain over their beloved daughter Shulamit.


Dina Madar Lev