February 24, 2020

Marcela Abadi-Rhoads

Marcela Abadi-Rhoads descends from a Syrian Jewish family from Aleppo. Her grandparents emigrated from Syria, with branches of the family settling in Mexico City, Brooklyn, and Panama City, three hubs of Syrian Jewish life. Her maternal grandfather, a merchant, met her grandmother in Mexico City and later brought the family to Panama, then a young country, in the 1920s and 1930s. Her father was born in Panama, and her mother was born in Brooklyn before moving to Panama as a child. Marcela was born in Panama and grew up in its tight-knit, largely Sephardic Jewish community, attending the one Jewish day school and taking part in Maccabi youth activities.

When Marcela was eleven, her mother, who had divorced and was American-born, moved the family to Dallas, where her uncle had studied engineering at the University of Texas. The transition was a major culture shock. Not knowing that Akiba Academy existed, the family enrolled the girls in public school, where Marcela, who spoke Spanish and had an accent, faced assumptions and prejudice. She found renewed Jewish connection through BBYO in high school. Her mother, a psychotherapist, worked several jobs to support the family and became Marcela's greatest role model for strength and perseverance.

Marcela followed her uncle to the University of Texas and earned a degree in architecture, later spending a summer in Israel working for architect Moshe Safdie. She returned to Dallas, worked at the JCC preschool and several firms, and eventually launched her own practice, Abadi Architecture, around the time her daughter was born. She specializes in and teaches handicap accessibility and was elevated to Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. She met her husband, also an architect, at work; they married at Shaare Israel in 2001 and built a kosher, Shabbat-observant home in Dallas. She remains proud of her Syrian and Panamanian heritage and active in both her professional and Jewish communities.

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