By Jim Salinger…
It was 1954 and we were going to Auckland to farewell my cousins Susan, Michael and Danny with Aunt Olga (sister to the late Leo Manning of Auckland and the late Fay Salinger of Dunedin) and Uncle Athol Finkelstein (brother to the late Joe Finkelstein of Wellington) who were migrating to Israel.
We drove to Christchurch from Dunedin, took the overnight ferry from Lyttelton to Wellington, and then the sleeper train from Wellington to Auckland. I was seven at the time and all I can remember of the trip was being in a sleeper compartment and being woken up for the cup of tea served in chunky cups in Taumarunui on the main trunk line in the middle of the night.
My Aunt and Uncle were the children of families that fled the pogroms of Latvia and Lithuania in the late 19th and early 20th century. Max Schneidemann (later Manning) emigrated to London then arriving in Auckland in 1910, and Michael Norman Finkelstein from London to Wellington arriving in the 1900s.
We stayed with the two families (with Athol and Olga Finkelstein and Leo and Olive Manning in Auckland) in One Tree Hill. The Finkelsteins had decided to go on Aliyah as a family to Israel, much to our grandfather’s chagrin.
He had spent great effort in establishing his son-in-law and son in business together making shoulder and brassiere pads for Kiwis in Onehunga – Kelvin Manufacturing Company. But Uncle Athol had gone in 1953 to Israel to buy land to start farming inland from Netanya at Kfar Vitkin.
The Finkelstein’s departed on their lengthy journey as they had to go via London because New Zealanders in those days were British Citizens and New Zealand passports did not exist. They had to apply from the UK to immigrate into Israel.
With their land they established a chicken farm, and the eggs were fertile for breeding chickens. Uncle Athol then started teaching English in a school, and Aunt Olga worked in the American – Israeli paper company in Hadera in the office translating.
They were very hospitable and for many New Zealanders the first port of call when making Aliyah to Israel was the Finkelsteins.
The years went by and Cousin Susan (Shosh) married Zalman Zamir, who was a farmer with citrus and livestock farming in Herut, and produced dairy products from sheep. This had its ups and downs and when the price of dairy items crashed that hurt them tremendously.
Shosh herself became a ceramics artist and worked to rehabilitate patients in hospitals. Today she assists those with mental disabilities with ceramics therapy.
Cousin Michael married to Hannah Lee, initially establishing a turkey farm, then worked in Persia in Shiraz prior to the Iranian revolution. He then set up plastic greenhouses in Kfar Vitkin. In the 1980s he grew gypsophila which were exported to Europe in the winter.
He then migrated to edible flowers, also exported to Europe. He now has started with finger limes, a thorny small tree from the lowland subtropical rainforest of Queensland or in the coastal border region of New South Wales.
The finger lime has been recently popularised as gourmet bushfood. They have been likened to a “lime caviar” that can be used as a garnish or added to various recipes. The fresh vesicles have the effect of a burst of effervescent tangy flavour as they are chewed.
Danny married Shula, and they live in Ramat Gan. And, of course, they had several children each, and now many many grandchildren. Danny worked as commercial manager in Israel “Mashbir Lazarchan” and also spent five years in Poland as operation director in the largest chain of stores of its kind in Poland.
Danny also worked as manager of operations at MAGNUS – an international search and rescue service that offers comprehensive emergency assistance services to independent travellers. Today they both work with elderly people. They have three children and four grandchildren.
And so, after a 65-year gap what of Israel’s first kiwi family?
I spent six months in Israel recently and can report that many of the children and grandchildren are New Zealand passport holders. So they still have a connection to whence their parents wandered from – Aoteoroa New Zealand.
However, they are strongly Israeli based and leading productive lives in Eretz Israel. My three cousins still identify strongly with New Zealand years later. They also have the characteristic of being gentle and softly spoken compared with their sabra cohorts.
Having lived from the Ben Gurion age to the Bibi epoch and married sabras, they have seen it all. They maintain a relaxed but secular Jewish identity in the State. Israel is their homeland and they are very much committed to the country they integrated into. They are there for good.
But it was delightful to discover a slice of Kiwiana very much woven into the Israel fabric.
