Liora Peiser
Liora's roots reach back to White Russia, from where her paternal grandparents came to Rishon LeZion with the Second Aliyah in the late 1800s, one of the first settlements in the land. Her father was born in Palestine and lived under Ottoman, British, and independent rule. Her mother's family came from Cologne, Germany, and Poland. When the Nazis seized her grandfather at their door, he bribed a guard to escape a train bound for Auschwitz, while her grandmother and mother sailed on one of the last boats to Palestine. Her parents met in Israel, where Liora was born in Rishon LeZion and her brother in Jerusalem.
In 1929 her father had joined other adventurous young men from Rishon LeZion to farm coffee in Kenya, returning to Israel to marry. When Liora was four, the family moved to East Africa, where her brother's first language was Swahili. She recalls a close-knit Jewish community founded by those young bachelors, a modern Orthodox shul, and a Sunday school where her mother taught Hebrew. At twelve she attended a strict British boarding school. As independence movements swept the region in the early 1960s, the family returned to Israel. After her parents divorced and she served in the Israeli army, Liora visited her mother and brother in South Africa, met John, and stayed.
In South Africa Liora and John married and had two children, Daniela and Gary, and she earned a doctorate in biochemistry. In 1978, uneasy about raising children there, they moved to Dallas, first staying with Ruth Heidemann, a classmate of John's mother from Germany. Liora later earned a master's in psychology, working in the medical school's sleep lab before pursuing clinical work. The Peisers helped start a Solomon Schechter chapter and Yavne Academy, and John served as a synagogue president. Her mother, a scholar and Hebrew teacher, joined them and lived past ninety. Cherishing her grandmother's candlesticks and her father's Ottoman sword, Liora treasures family above all and calls Dallas home.
Full Transcript
Today is April the 16th 2016 and I'm Joan Grimont and Anetra Kuzin is working the camera and we're very happy to interview you, Leora Kaiser. Leora, start with as far back with your family as you know, your parents, your grandparents, where they came from approximately when they left, wherever they left, until they finally got to South Africa or wherever you were born. Okay. I'll start with my dad's side. Okay. So, my grandparents came from what was called White Russia at the time. They came with a second aliyah to Israel, to Rishon Litsion, which was the first settlement in Israel. And it was approximately... And it was at the late 1800s, 1880-something.
Okay. My dad was born in Palestine at the time. He lived under the Turks, the Ottoman Empire, and then the British Empire, and then through independence. Okay. My mom's parents, let's see, my granny came from Cologne, Germany. My grandpa came, at the time, it was part of Poland, from Poland. Okay. And my mom was born in Cologne, Germany. Okay. And she and her mom, my uncle left to go to Israel on a youth aliyah just before the war broke out. And my granny, my grandpa was taken away. The Nazis came to my grandparents' door and took him away. They said to a work camp. And my granny my oma gave him some money which he tucked behind his belt And because he came from Poland they put him on a train to Auschwitz And on the way to Auschwitz the train stopped at one of the stations, and he bribed a guard with that money that my granny had given him, and the guard took him off the train and put him on a train going in the opposite direction.
In the meantime, my granny and my mom got on the last boat, 19, I think it was 37, to go to Palestine. Okay. And my grandpa eventually met them there. Wow. So, and my parents met in Israel. Okay. And my brother and I, I was born in Rishon Mitzel. My brother was born in Jerusalem. And prior to that, in 1929, my father was a young guy in his 20s. He and a whole lot of young Israeli men from this one town, Rishon Litsion, had a very adventurous spirit, and they decided to go to Kenya, East Africa, to farm coffee. and it was the Rappaports, the Kasslers, the Abramovitches, all these bachelors and so he left already in 1929 and then when it was time to get married they all went back to Israel and took Israeli women and we were born in Israel and when I was four and my brother was a year old we all went back to East Africa so the first language my brother ever spoke was Swahili So that's where you started you grew up there I was born in Israel left at the age of 4 was in East Africa till the age of about 12 and then all the countries around us started having independence and bloody revolutions and people started leaving you know we didn't want to wait until we didn't know what the transition would be like there So we actually went back to Israel.
Okay. And, alright. And then, tell us about your own life growing up, what you remember. School family did you have any family with you on all these trips all over Are you talking about Kenya Wherever you were Yeah I had a lot of family in Israel Kenya I didn actually But we were very... The Jewish community was started by these young bachelors, you know. And we were a very close community. And I remember there was a shul there. It was like a modern Orthodox shul. I remember the women sitting upstairs, but no Mephiza and the men downstairs. And there was a Sunday school. My mother taught Hebrew in the Sunday school.
And I went to a boarding school when I was 12. That's what the British did. It was the British colony at the time. So I was in boarding school. But every Sunday, out of the 600 girls, I think there were six Jewish girls. And they used to come and pick us up every Sunday morning to go to Sunday school. and then we used to sneak home and go back to school. It was a very strict school, very English, very, very strict. And I remember when my brother wanted to come and visit me, he needed to have a letter from his headmaster to say that he was my brother.
You know, one of those schools. So that was Kenya. I remember Kenya was very, very beautiful. It was just a wonderful, wonderful life. And when did you leave there? Left in 1969, I think it was, and went back to Israel. Right. No, it wasn't 69, sorry. No, it was not 69. It was early 60s. Early 60s, yeah. And then, something like that. All right. And then when did you go to South Africa? Well, my parents got divorced. My father stayed in Israel and my mother took my brother. In the meantime, all the Kenyans moved to South Africa because of independence. So my mother took my brother and went to South Africa.
I had to go into the Israeli army. I didn't see them for two years. When I came out of the army, I went to visit them. I met John. Tell us about that. Okay. So, all right, so you met John. So I arrived when I came out of the Israeli army the six war broke out just before I left And I had just been released from the army and I had to do civil defense before I left I had to walk around the streets making sure the windows were blacked out and people were not on the streets. And then shortly after that, I went to visit my mom and my brother who had been seen for two years.
Okay, so you stayed in the south. And I went, you know, just for a visit, and I ended up staying. And tell us about the family or children that you, once you and John got married. Okay. We had two children in South Africa, Daniela and Gary. And we lived in the Melrose Gardens. We lived in an apartment. Okay. We knew, I think, that we were going to leave, so we never really settled in a home there. and we had, you know, John's parents were there, my mom was there, we had a wonderful family night, his brother, right, his two brothers, and whilst I was there, I went to University, Tobit's University.
I got my doctorate in biochemistry and actually the day that the packets came I handed in my doctorate. I wasn't there for very long. I was there for about 10 years or so. So how and why did you make the decision to leave South Africa? How and why? What year was it? 1978. 1978, yeah. Well, you know, we didn't like what was going on there. We used to wake up every morning and ask each other, you know, what's going to happen. There was a lot of uncertainty. and we felt that we didn't want to bring up our kids in that environment. Okay. And you'd been used to moving, so it wasn't that difficult, right?
And what was your family's reaction to your decision to leave South Africa? My second family, like John's family. Yes, and your mother. His mother was very upset because she lived in the States. I mean, John... John was born in the States and emigrated to South Africa when he was very young. He actually lost his father, and the reason he landed up in South Africa was because his mother had a sister in Johannesburg. And, you know, brought them over to Johannesburg. But she had a very, very difficult time. She was left with two little kids and really, really struggled. and America to her was, you know, not the best place to go to, so she was not very happy.
So how and why did you decide to come to Dallas, and had you been there here to visit, and did you know people here? That's actually a question you should ask my husband, because he went job searching. Okay. Yeah, we knew people. We knew a handful of people who were coming here. My husband went to other towns. He was offered a job in New York, and we decided we didn't want to bring up our kids in New York. And he was also offered a job in the Pisgah Forest of North Carolina. And that didn't appeal to us. And actually, one of the reasons we came to Dallas was because his mother had a classmate from Germany who lived in Dallas.
and John had somewhere to go to and look around and somewhere to stay with somewhere to stay with when he came here and when we moved to Dallas the first place we stayed at was at Ruth Heidemann this classmate of his mother from Germany So in what ways were other people Americans and South Africans helpful when you first arrived? Did you find they were very welcoming to you, Americans? Dallas in general? I think the South Africans more because we were all in the same boat and we were family to each other. We all stuck together. I think the Dallas community was very self-contained and we were all in the same boat.
We all helped each other. So tell us about your work that you done since you been here Goodness Did you go back to school in Dallas I did yeah You did I went back to school and I got a master in psychology I worked at the medical school for a few years in the sleep lab. Before I went back to school, I actually, when the kids were very small, I picked up some books in psychology and got hooked and tried to look for a way to get to change fields. And I went to the medical school, worked there for two years in the psychiatry department in the sleep lab, doing research there.
And then I realized that I needed, in order to do clinical work, I needed to go back to school. I actually did an internship at UTE for a while, and then ended up going back to school and went to Texas Women's University and got my Master's in Psychology there. Okay. So tell us about your introduction to the Dallas Jewish community. How did you find the Dallas Jewish community compared to the South African Jewish community? Similarities, differences? Wow, that's a very hard question. In terms of observance at the time. Oh, in terms of observance. Yes, in terms of what you were used to as a Jewish community in South Africa, to what you found here.
I think the Jewish community in South Africa was much more traditional. I found it actually quite a challenge to bring up Jewish kids in Dallas. Did your children go to Jewish schools? Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. And have you been involved in the Jewish community in Dallas? And if you have, in what way? You mean throughout the... Organizations or synagogue? Sure, yeah, we've always been members of a synagogue. We were involved in starting the Solomon's Chapter. My husband was involved in starting Yavne Academy He was also president of Nazan Yeah We been involved all these years Once you were here, did any of your family join you?
Either your family or your husband's family? After we had been here for six months, my mother joined us from South Africa. And actually my husband's brother joined us. Okay, right. and since you've been here tell us about your family, your children how your family has grown where your grown up children are now okay my mother's still with us, thank goodness she's 93 and has been a scholar and a Hebrew teacher in Dallas since she arrived our two kids our daughter was five Daniela and Gary was two when we arrived. Daniela graduated from Akiba Academy, Gary from Solomon Schechter. They both ended up leaving Dallas and did not live here for about 17 years.
But Gary came back and he's currently living here, married a Dallas girl, and we have two beautiful granddaughters here. Okay. And your daughter? Daniela, she went off to Cornell. She was at Cornell for two years, did her MBA, and then worked, did not live in Dallas for many, many years, and ended up moving back to South Africa, fell in love with Cape Town, moved back to South Africa, I lived there for six years and then about three or four years ago met a fellow from San Diego and moved out of South Africa and is living in San Diego now. Okay. And do you still have family in South Africa?
I don't, but my husband John does. Okay. And, well, I would say to you, what do you miss about life in South Africa? but South Africa, it's Kenya, it's Israel. Is there anything that you miss about any of those countries where you live I think I miss family most of all extended family and I also miss the beauty of Africa Right Which I reminded of every time I go back And you are a U.S. citizen, I presume. Yes. And how do you feel about being an American citizen? This is home now. I've been home for 36 years. Yeah, it's a long time. It is a long time.
I've lived here longer than I've lived anywhere else. Right. is there anything that we haven't covered that you'd like to tell us about is there anything you'd like to show us that's been with you on all these journeys something that your grandmother brought out from Germany or from Palestine anything that your grandfather had when I've got my grandmother's pair of candlesticks from Germany during the Holocaust. Is that on the bottom shelf? Yes. Yes, beautiful. Okay. So those have had quite a journey. Oh, yeah. There's my father's sword. Father's sword. That's from the Ottoman Empire. Wow. I can't think of anything offhand. All right. So anything we didn't talk about that you'd like to still add in?
Your grandfather, we left him in Israel. We left him in Israel, and that's where he lived, until he died. Okay. Yeah. And do you have your brother? You talked about a brother. Sure. Where is he? He lives in Toronto. Okay. He actually left South Africa before I did and moved with his wife to Toronto. And he's still living there now. He has two children. And we see him quite often. Good. All right. Thank you. That was lovely. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you.