Miriam Peretz

"I am so glad that you asked! People so often focus on the last few years, and forget that I, like every other person, have roots. My roots are in Morocco, even though my dreams have always been in Eretz Yisrael"

"One of the greatest challenges we faced when we made Aliyah was the language barrier. I was a ten-year-old girl and struggled to learn Hebrew, but my parents found it even harder, and so I had to become their spokesperson and advocate. We would go to the social services with my parents, and as a little girl I would be the one telling the government official “we don’t have a blanket, we need this or that.” Even once we left the ma’abarah and moved to the city, there would often be a line outside my house, as I would write letters for people who didn’t know how to write themselves."

"I also had to be the support for my whole household. Each member of the family processed the loss differently. One child started asking, “Where is G-d, how could He have done something like this?” My husband became physically sick – on Uriel’s first yahrzeit he suffered a heart attack. I knew I was the backbone of the family. As a woman, I had a deep desire to make sure my house wouldn’t fall apart, and this made me find the strength to be the rock of the house. It was very difficult, but I knew what my goal was."

"A second challenge was getting used to the Israeli mentality. In Morocco, we grew up with a tremendous sense of respect for parents and teachers. In Israel, I went to school and heard a child shouting at his mother – I was shocked! It wasn’t easy getting used to the sabra mentality."