Grandma Ketty
by Nogah Koplewitz

Ketty-Yehudit Koplewitz neé Hollender
Naumburg 1894 – Jerusalem 1987

A joint memoir by her granddaughter Nogah Koplewitz, her son Immanuel,
her granddaughter Irit, and grandson Benny

Introduction
I used to have two beloved grandmothers – Grandma Chaika from Russia – my mother's mother, and Grandma Ketty – my father's mother, who was born in Germany. Both had taught Hebrew and both were active in the movement for the revival of the Hebrew language long before they made aliya. And both made aliya because they were confirmed Zionists, having worked as teachers and educators for a very long time. Both were extremely involved in the cultural life of the country –and for both of them- I was the first and beloved granddaughter. The difference between the sentimentality and spontaneity of Jews from Russia and, in contrast to this, the sense of rationality and the propensity to plan ahead which both characterize Jews of German origin, has helped me to appreciate all that is good and special in Jews from each of these backgrounds.

Grandma Ketty had openness about her, and an unbounded curiosity about people; she was fascinated by disparate fields of science, culture… different places. My memories of her are inextricably bound up in games, trips, books and performances.

Studies
Grandma Ketty was the daughter of Juliana (neé Auerbach) and Ludwig Hollender. She was born in the town of Naumburg, which is on the railway line that connects Berlin, Leipzig and Vienna. Her father taught Latin and Greek at the Gymnasium. One of her grandfathers was a doctor and some of her uncles were scientists and musicians. Ketty graduated from the secondary school for girls and wished to continue studying and receive a higher education, yet at that time, girls were not yet allowed to enrol for academic studies. She therefore had to first start taking lessons which were not formally recognized toward a BA. When the gates of German universities opened up for women, Ketty was one of the first to enrol for studies at Leipzig University. As she completed her studies for a bachelor’s degree, her mother's brother, Uncle Felix, suggested that Ketty continue her studies at the University of Jena, where he was teaching at the time – and she took up his offer.

Zionism
After the First World War, in the course of which Ketty’s brother Peter was killed during his service as combat medic in the Prussian army, she decided she wanted to broaden and deepen her knowledge of Judaism. During this period, she also joined the circles which included Martin Buber, Samuel Hugo Bergman, Gershom Scholem (who mentioned her in his book “from Berlin to Jerusalem”, and with which she maintained friendship for many years to come), Ernst Akiva Simon, Shmuel Yosef Agnon who was from Eastern Europe but had been "adopted" by German Jewry, and Karu (Krupnik) Baruch among many distinguished others. One of her best friends was Tony Hala, who established and directed later on "Tichon Chadash"–a secondary school in Tel Aviv.  Among her friends were also young people who would be among the founders of Kibbutz Beit Zera.  Out of solidarity and interest for Eastern-European Judaism, Ketty joined the teaching staff at the Hebrew Gymnasium in Mariampol, in Lithuania, which had Arthur Levenhartz as its principal. Max Mayer also taught at this gymnasium and it was he who "recruited" my grandfather Yaakov Koplewitz to work as an educator at the same gymnasium.

Aliya
Grandma Ketty first came to Palestine in 1925, and this could be set at the date of her “first aliya”.  However, in 1928 she travelled back to Germany, where she taught mathematics and sent her son Immanuel to the Jewish-Zionist school, while incessantly keeping in touch with friends who had previously made aliya. In 1933 she made aliya once again, now teaching Hebrew and Bible studies and living in a flat in Haifa which had a magnificent view of the verdant Carmel mountain range on one side, and of the bay of Haifa on the other side. She grew cactuses, tended plants in pots and filled the planters on her porch with greenery.

A Healthy Life Style
Eating healthily was one of Grandma Ketty’s habits, and she had become used to eating "health-bread". Every morning she would prepare muesli – she would slice up fruit very thin, add oat flakes, wheat seeds and grains and mix them very carefully with yogurt. During that time, these products were still unknown in Israel and were even thought of as "eccentric".
Every morning Grandma Ketty used to have special exercise for…..her fingers – an activity that is known to improve blood flow. When I was a university student, my gym teacher would sometimes remind me that keeping one’s fingers active helps one’s overall circulation and that to keep them moving warms up the whole body. I was once walking through Jerusalem on a bitterly cold and snowy morning when I suddenly remembered that bit of advice from Grandma Ketty, and started doing finger exercises. It really helped me to feel better in the bitter cold.

Trips
In 1946 Ketty went on a walking trip around the Mountains of Jerusalem with her son Immanuel and some of his student friends. Walking down a steep path she fell and was injured; the Mukhtar of the village of Wallage, which was the nearest place to where she had been walking, dressed her injuries. This event is described in detail in Gabriel Stern's book “On Musah, the Red Head's porch”.

In 1956, Grandma Ketty took part in a trip organized by the Israel Exploration Society in Ramat Rachel, where she was wounded from a shot fired by a Jordanian soldier in the direction of the group. After a short recovery she re-joined the trips and tours. When I was eleven she took my father and me on a trip to the area around the Carmel and all of us climbed up to see the monument to Alexander Zaid. The following day we went sailing in the Acre bay.

From her visits to Switzerland and the Netherlands Grandma Ketty would bring me back handicraft kits – all kinds of kits for embroidery and weaving – which could not be purchased in Israel at the time; she liked to encourage me develop all kinds of creative pastimes.

Mind Games
Grandma Ketty was extremely proficient in Hebrew, German, English and Italian. She was invariably reading something; whether novels or newspapers, and it turns out that she also had a good understanding of Spanish, Dutch and Yiddish.  She was an expert in solving crossword puzzles, even those that were quite hard. She would frequently seek out some tranquil, hidden corner among the pine and mulberry trees, where she would sit surrounded by books and jigsaw puzzles. Whenever we came to visit her she would look up, and perhaps ask us what we were doing and then she would start off with memory games and other mental exercises such as "Lost" (which is more commonly known by the name of "Twenty-One"), "Country-City",  "Checkers" and "Stations" (drawn on the other side of the checkers' board). From time to time she would suggest that we dramatize excerpts from books such as "Pünktchen und Anton", "Emil and the Detectives" – all books she had read out aloud in German to our father, Immanuel, when he was a child; and later in Hebrew, to us.

The Wide World
Grandma Ketty visited Italy many times. She had been studying Italian and taking courses in Italian for many years. When the film The Garden of the Finzi Continis was shown in Israel, my Grandma Ketty said that this movie was actually about a friend of hers. At the time, I understood this in a straightforward way; yet, now I wonder whether she really knew the real heroine of the story or that what she meant was rather that some of her friends had been through similar experiences.

She had lots of old books of original German literature and Edgar, her niece Gerda's son wrote her a letter about Ketty reading him excerpts of Goethe's and Schiller's letters, and what an intensely beautiful experience it was, while he was strolling among the trees on the shore of a lake. He said that it was thanks to her that he got to know and love classical German literature.

When I was in secondary school, she gave me the book "A Letter from Peking", which describes the experiences of a family torn between two worlds (China and the United States) and she said: "We also seem to live straddled between different worlds and realities.”

One day I was planning to visit her. It was a day when there was going to be a performance of Ladino songs by Yehoram Gaon, one of my favourite singers.  After a little wavering, I decided to give up the performance and went to visit her instead.  As I walked into the room she told me: "Let's put the television on now, there’s going to be a performance of songs in Spanish." That's how we got to watch the performance together.

Judaism
"These candlesticks were my mother's,” Grandma Ketty would say whenever she saw my mother lighting the Shabbat candles. In addition to the candlesticks we also had the prayer books and the well-worn old Pesach haggadahs which had belonged to her aunt Fanny – her mother's sister.
Grandma Ketty was not a religious woman, yet on Hanukah she would stand proudly in front of the Chanukiyah and sing the lyrics of the song Maoz Tzur Yeshuati along with us, and on the Seder night at Pesach she would enjoy reading aloud from the Haggadah. At the end of the Seder night, we would all play a game of throwing nuts onto the table (like a game of bowling); and she had rapid and accurate throws, which could put even the young people to shame.

Grandma's Grandmother
From time to time Grandma Ketty would tell us about her own grandma, Arabella – Juliana's mother who was born in 1837 and was married at the age of 18. After her wedding, she took a honeymoon trip and later, reflected upon the trip in writing. This was published in a booklet under the name of "The Wedding Trip".

My Father, his Grandmother and his Uncles
My father Immanuel was born in Germany and studied in a school that was run by the Society for Jewish-Zionist education in Berlin, which later became the “Herzl” school. Whenever he visited his grandmother Juliana, he would meet his cousins and they would play and run around together among the trees in the large yard and get to taste the jams in the cellar.

Whenever we visited Uncle Felix in the city of Jena, his wife Anna would ask Immanuel to read out loud to her a chapter from the Bible and draw a map of the Land of Israel –first a "blank" map, and then slowly fill in the details. Later on, she would show him the map which he had drawn during his previous visit so as to assess his advancement. Uncle Felix was a physicist and he taught at the University of Jena, where he also worked as a consultant in the Zeiss factory, which manufactured optical instruments.  During Uncle Felix’s free time he wrote a booklet of memoirs by the name of "Our Home".

I never knew Juliana – Grandma Ketty's mother – yet, from my father's recollections I have managed to absorb some of her life wisdom. During my childhood, whenever I looked for an object that I lost and didn't have a clue where to find it, my father would tell me: "Instead of running around and looking for it all over the place, it’d be best to do what my grandmother used to do. Whenever she misplaced something, my grandmother would sit down, shut her eyes and think: When did I last use this object? Where was it before? What did I do later?  And then she would almost always find the object located between the place in which she used the object last and the place which she went to afterwards.”  Since then, I have always kept this in mind, and it’s an incredibly useful strategy whenever I misplace something.

My father told us that his grandmother Juliana used to own things made of Jena glass which is renowned as glass that is extremely strong and does not break, even in boiling water. Once a glass fell, shattering into smithereens …. we picked up the broken pieces and could hear our grandmother muttering the whole time, “Jena glass isn’t supposed to break.”  Now, whenever I buy anything that doesn’t live up to the promises made by its manufacturer, I say to myself:  “Jena glass isn’t supposed to break!”  That seems to take care of my annoyance.

Looking for Relatives
At the beginning of the Second World War, Grandma Ketty's older brother, Otto and his son Prutya ("little brother") = Johannes perished. Otto's eldest son, Peter, who had been named after his uncle who had been killed in the First World War, joined the Partisans and was later killed during the war. Once the war ended, Ketty tried to search for Otto's other children and she found them scattered around the world – his daughter Gerda had landed up in Russia, his son Kris had landed up in the Netherlands, his son George had reached Australia.  Elly, her nephew Peter's son, had been hidden in a monastery and after the establishment of the State of Israel, was brought to Israel by the Aliyat Hano’ar movement and adopted by a family on a kibbutz.  John, who was the son of Hans, Grandma Ketty’s other brother – went to England and later on joined the British Army. Grandma Ketty kept up with most of her nieces and their children.

Twilight Days
In 1976, towards the autumn of her life, Ketty joined The Siegfried Moses Parents’ Home in Jerusalem, where she lived another eleven years before she passed away. During this time, she used to take extensive walks in the field near the railway tracks and grow many plants on her porch. Even when she found it more difficult to walk she never gave up her strolls in the yard, and enjoyed breathing in the fresh air and gazing at the greenery of the garden.

At times she would sit and mend socks on a darning cushion, and she’s look at the size of the sock and saying how much we’d grown… Whenever I visited her she would ask me about my experiences at work and always remembered a story that I’d told her about a girl who ran away from school. From time to time she used to give me some advice about how to manage my finances.

Grandma Ketty had the privilege of being able to get to know the children of her granddaughter Irit. She made a rag-doll out of soft wool for her great-granddaughter, Shiri, and a puppy for her grand-grandson, Or, and she was even able to be at her grandson Benny's wedding. She was an extremely honest and sincere person, taking care to never gossip. Whenever she wanted to convey any criticism, she used to say it out in the open, but in a discreet way.

Grandma Ketty passed away at the ripe old age of ninety four, on the eve of Succoth, in 1987.
May her soul be bound up in the bond of everlasting life.

 התרגום נעשה על-ידי ג'ודי רייך בעריכת אלומה הלטר

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