Tammy Travels
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Tammy traveled to various places in the world over the years. Many trips were with the family in her childhood, adolescence & later: after graduation from HS we visited France, & soon after we returned Tammy got sick. Despite this, since she tried & succeeded in leading quite a full life, Tammy traveled also by herself, with friends in the US, &/or with groups. Tammy came to visit us in the States often using Turkish Airways. She felt familiar & came to also visit Istanbul.
Tammy participated in theater studies in London U for a few weeks, studied Kundalini Yoga in France (both in addition to NYC) & traveled to West Africa with a group of players of African-musical instruments; she played drums & Ambira. In the summer of 2004, mother Aviva visited Israel with the Otzma group (health & mental health professionals prepared themselves to come to Israel if the situation will call for it due to the tension of the Intifada). Tammy was inspired to go back & Made Alyia without declaring it. During the beginning of her life back in Israel Tammy joined Otzma people to see the kind of work she could do in Sderot. She decided then to travel weekly to Sderot & use Yoga as a way to help women working with the population there to acquire some relaxation methods when bombarded & also help care givers working with children to relax .
In 2007, already from Israel, Tammy & her mother traveled to Rome to celebrate Passover together.
In 1993 we traveled as a family to Europe, in a Roots trip. We visited Bulgaria, Shabtay’s & his parents’, Liza & Eliahu z"l, birth place. We met Shabtay's childhood friends & learned about a country known for treating its Jewish population in very protective ways. From there we traveled to Poland, the birth place of Aviva’s parents, Batya & Moshe z"l. The experiences there were different – it was a painful, quite bitter experience to see our great- & grandparents' homes. The visits in death camps were quite traumatic considering the fact that many of Aviva's family perished there. Coming to Israel just before the war saved Aviva's parents.
During this trip we had a new, different experience – a short but very meaningful meeting with cousin Lemour who just turned Bat-Mitzvah. Sharing the very difficult views in Poland along with the very warm feelings aroused during the trip among the cousins was quite meaningful. Tammy developed strong feelings towards Lemour, which turned even closer when they each came back to live in Israel years later. Furthermore, this special love in Tammy caused her to travel the farthest away, by herself: in the end of 2011 Lemour was very badly injured in a terrible car accident in Japan. This trip was obviously quite different from anything else they experienced before. The connection & the love that started out in Poland & in Israel & Tammy’s sense of devotion & love for her cousin brought this completely different type of travel.
Tammy and her cousin Lemour
Tammy settled in Israel in the end of 2004, & she came to visit in the US yearly. Two of her visits were quite significant: On her first visit we both traveled to LA, California, to meet her cousins, Ben, Efty & her husband Franky who just had their first child, Akiva. Tammy remembered Efty's birth in MN & was very excited to see her as a mother (their daughter was born just a few days after Tammy’s death).
The second trip in the US, also took her far from NY: she flew to MPLS, MN, where we lived in the 70s. She flew there for the first time by herself. The purpose of this trip was partly nostalgic... & it had an additional goal: Tammy had learned from Facebook about the very serious illness of her friend, L., with whom she corresponded from age 12. She rented a car & drove them to Walnut Grove, where “Little House on the Prairies” took place, a story that so many girls were taken with, in which Laura Ingles was the heroine.
A letter to Tammy from her cousin Efty, who visited her in 2016, along with her family.
