Johanna Borg SJA – z”l

Johanna was born in Malta and arrived in Israel as a young sister to be part of the work of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Apparition in the Holy Land. The Sisters run schools and hospitals, help out in parishes, run a retreat center and a hostel for students, they also host pilgrims. Theirs was the first congregation to arrive in the Holy Land after the foundation of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem in the 19^th century.

Johanna is especially remembered in Beer Sheba. She and another Sister of Saint Joseph, Anne, came to live in Beer Sheba in the 1970s, helping out in the parish that was run by Father Jean-Roger Hene, an Assumptionist. Father Jean-Roger bought land in Beer Sheba in 1971, land on which would be built the home for the kehilla. Sisters Johanna and Anne came to live in Beer Sheba in order to help in the building up of the house and the community.

When Father Jean-Roger died in 1979, Sisters Johanna and Anne helped keep the parish community going with love and devotion, making the kehilla house their home. They sought priests who could come and administer the sacraments while the Sisters guaranteed ongoing parish life and catechism. It was in 1991, with the arrival of Father Paul Collin that the Sisters returned to Jerusalem.

Subsequently, Sister Johanna served as provincial of the Sisters of Saint Joseph in Israel and later as the superior of the community in Kiryat Yearim, above the town of Abu Ghosh. It was there that members of the parish of Beer Sheba were able to meet with her at the Hebrew speaking communities’ celebrations of the kehilla days (on Easter and the Feast of Tabernacles) when the parish of Beer Sheba joined the other Hebrew speaking Catholics in Kiryat Yearim.

May her memory be a source of blessing!