Elisheva RIP

We publish the words of Izabela:

I met Elisheva and Daniel on my first visit to Israel (sabbatical year 1990/1991). They invited me to Haifa. The great experience that awaited me there was the Lord's Supper in the community house (this house had previously served as a feather processing factory). We sat in a large hall around a table like a family on Seder night. The Lord's Supper in Hebrew and the passing of the Holy Bread and the Chalice among the participants impressed me greatly. After the prayer, delicious and elegant refreshments were served by Elisheva. The prayer in the house and the cordial atmosphere that prevailed there immediately evoked in me an association with the Last Supper and with the verse from the New Testament: "Day by day they continued to be with one heart in the temple and broke bread in their homes..." (Acts 2:46). This Lord's Supper in the summer of 1991 in the community house was engraved in my heart as the most authentic encounter with Jesus in His country. It was an encounter with him through a culture that was a continuation of the tradition in which He grew up. Elisheva wholeheartedly supported Daniel's project on Christianity in the Land of Israel that is considerate of the Jewish environment. It was not for nothing that she won the Mount Zion Prize from the University of Lucerne in 1991. Her organizational talents and the strength of her personality were also reflected in the organization of the Feast of Communities (Yom HaKehilot) for the holiday of Sukkot in Tabgha on the shores of the Sea of ​​Galilee, as she had good connections with the Benedictine monastery there. I was privileged to come to Haifa on another sabbatical year (1992/1993) and was thus able to deepen Daniel's intuition regarding the path of Christianity in Israel.

Cardinal Ratzinger understood this intuition when he wrote before he was elected Pope to one of the members of the community: "You, in Israel, need to express your faith in a more synthetic and reduced way." In 1998, disaster struck Elisheva - Daniel's sudden death. She did not have time to say goodbye to him. When she arrived at the hospital and put her hand in his, he did not respond. Daniel passed away on Tisha B'Av and Elisheva on Ash Wednesday. There is no better combination of dates.

By Izabela Ephal