April 25, 2016

Deb Lewin

Deb Lewin's family history spans several continents. Her maternal grandfather was born in South Africa, while her grandmother was born in England to parents who had come from Russia as children, settling in Rhodesia and neighboring Portuguese East Africa. Her great-grandfather served as caretaker of the synagogue in Mozambique, in the city then called Lourenco Marques. Deb's mother, one of two daughters, grew up in Rhodesia. The man who raised Deb, John Lewin, came from Poland to Rhodesia as a young child. Her mother and John, both previously divorced, met through the Jewish community and blended their families, raising five children together. Deb, the only girl, was the first in the family to be bat mitzvahed and attended a Jewish day school.

Deb grew up in Salisbury, now Harare, within a sizable Jewish community that included Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and Reform congregations. Her family joined the Reform synagogue, and her parents were instrumental in helping establish it. As political unrest grew in the late 1970s, the family made Aliyah to Israel, where Deb lived for three years, first on an ulpan in Ashkelon and later near Tel Aviv and in Rishon LeZion. She represented Israel in field hockey at the Maccabiah Games. When her home country changed its name, she found herself stateless during a visit to America in the mid-1980s, and she applied for and eventually received United States citizenship, settling with her family in Richardson, Texas.

In Dallas, Deb worked seven days a week as a videographer, paramedic, and master practitioner of neuro-linguistic programming. In February 1996 she was broadsided by a vehicle, suffering a brain injury, paralysis, and other lasting injuries. Told she would never walk or care for herself again, she found renewal through therapeutic riding at Equest in Wylie, Texas, later competing on horseback and representing the United States at Paralympic trials. She wrote a book of poignant and humorous stories about her journey. Deb volunteers at Equest, helps care for her older brother, and treasures large family gatherings across the Dallas area, carrying forward her parents' lessons of tolerance, education, and pride in her Jewish and African heritage.

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