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An Israeli-Lebanese Fairytale
A happy ending for a renowned pair of Jewish twins who were
separated by war from their beloved Lebanese nanny
by Ayelet Tsabari
      

     It is the day of the big eclipse, and my sister and I are driving a dusty little car from Tel Aviv to the Western Galilee in Northern Israel. The date is August 11, 1999. Today, according to Nostradamus, the world will come to an end. But for us skeptics, it is just another sunny Wednesday and a perfect day for a trip to the Galilee, where we can watch the last eclipse of the millennium and eat at the famed “Twins Restaurant” of Schania.
   In two days – on another dangerous day, Friday the 13th – I’ll be returning to my new home in Vancouver, Canada, a 16-hour flight around the world.
     Six years ago, Israel was my home. I had a little house on a kibbutz in the Western Galilee, which I shared with my first love and a little furry dog. From my window, I could see yellow cornfields kissing green hills and a pecan tree that bloomed every second winter, and I could smell the salty sea breeze.
     I worked at a local magazine, writing profiles of the people of northern Israel. I’d travel as far as I could in search of stories, using public transportation and hitchhiking, visiting Jewish, Arab and Druze villages.
     It was then that I first heard about the Lebanese-Israeli twins who run a small restaurant atop Schania Hill. The story sounded like a fairytale – the tale of twin Jewish girls from Beirut who immigrated to Israel at age 18 and spent years searching for their beloved Lebanese nanny. After 15 years of forced separation, the women were finally reunited. On a cold winter day, I traveled to Schania, a small village in the lower Galilee, to meet them. What was to be a short meeting turned into a long afternoon. I was captivated by their story, which spread over four decades and across the boundaries of two beautiful but troubled countries. It blended love and tragedy, war and redemption . . .

 


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