My Grandmother

By Dr Elior Kinarthy
 
I had forgotten about my famous Israeli family. Curious, I googled Zev Brande (1848-1918), my great grandfather. I hit a bull's eye! There was his picture as the first mayor of Petah Tikvah from 1890 to 1900. Malka Brande was his daughter and my beloved grandmother. Malka was the head of Hadassah in Petah Tikvah and did many years of service to help women that were in abusive relationships from marriages in Turkey and Iraq. They had immigrated to the new country of Israel but were lost and powerless. Malka gave them a voice. Rabbi Cook, the chief Rabbi of Israel officiated at my Brit Milah (circumcision). In the 1990’s, I was settling my parent’s properties in Israel and the Rabbinical court trusted me when they found out that I was Malka Meiri’s grandson! Today there are streets named after both sides of my family.
 
My grandmother Malka Meiri (Brande) was born May 22, 1896 (d 1973) in Petah Tikvah to her mother Henia Halevi and her father Zeev Meir Brande. They came to Palestine in 1882 from Bialystok and received an acre of swamp land from the Rothschild Estate in America to build a farm. They called the community Petah Tikvah, Opening for Hope. (After they killed all the mosquitos.)

Malka was the fourth daughter of five girls and at the young age of 14 she volunteered to help individuals suffering in abusive marriages in an organization called 'Miserable Couples.'  In the 'Haboker' newspaper, dated August 21, 1959 they wrote, ' To Malka Meiri on your 63rd birthday, 'you are not just another person who helps people in pain, you are a miracle worker.' My grandmother was acknowledged with a 7-page article with accolades from B’nai Brith, Hadassah and other local organizations for the assistance she provided free over many years to thousands of Jewish women.
 
The background of my family is impressive, and I am proud, to be a part of the Brande-Meiri family. But what really impressed me as a child was my grandmother Malka's Pesach Seder. I remember a very long table with 30 noisy kissing and hugging relatives eating the farm’s home-grown fat chicken soup with home-made 'Kneidlach'. It’s hard to imagine having 5 live fish (carps) in the bathtub that my grandfather had to kill by a hit on the head. That’s how my grandmother made the best gefilte fish ever. But, to me the most vivid memory was at 10 years old when she asked me to open the door to Eliyahu Hanavi so he can bless us and drink the wine from the fancy silver cup on the table. I opened the door...but what came in was a poor old man in ragged clothes walking right in- with confidence and taking his seat at the table, ready to eat. For a moment I thought he was Eliyahu Hamashiach himself!  My Saba (grandfather in Hebrew) told me ‘It is an old tradition to save a seat for the poorest member of the town to celebrate with us the freedom from Egyptian slavery. I never forgot that lesson and the kindness of my grandparents to welcome a stranger into their home for the Seder meal.