By Judy Lash Balint, Special to JTNews
Nava Turin, 52,
cradles her infant twin boys as she looks out of the window
of her modest three-bedroom home in Kochav Yaakov at the
Judean hills beyond.
To those who meet
her in her newfound home, a 20-year-old community of 350
Torah-observant Jewish families just north of Jerusalem
across the Green Line, the modestly dressed Turin looks as
if she fits right in. But to anyone who knew the former
Nancy Weiss when she was an investment banker in Seattle,
single, living on Capitol Hill, and serving as president of
the Women’s Endowment Foundation of the Jewish Federation of
Greater Seattle, her lifestyle turnaround is quite a
surprise.
Turin’s story
made newspaper headlinesin Israel recently – even in a
country renowned for pulling out all the stops to help
couples have children, it’s unusual for a woman in her 50s
to give birth to her first offspring.
But Turin’s life
story is anything but usual. Turin smiles widely as she
recounts how a secular Ashkenazic Jew from Miami moved to
Seattle, got involved with a Sephardic congregation, became
observant, then visited and moved to Israel where she met
and married a man with a similar background.
A whirlwind
romance, wedding and move to Kochav Yaakov would be more
than most people could deal with, but Turin barely takes a
breath as she tells a visitor how she also managed to get
pregnant, deliver twins and take the Israeli securities exam
to resume her high-powered career.
Reflecting on her
journey, Turin says the first steps were taken in Seattle
when she was looking for a synagogue for her
three-times-per-year attendance.
She was
introduced to Congregation Ezra Bessaroth where she found a
warm welcome from several women and former Rabbi Yamin Levy.
Before long, Turin found herself attending classes on
Judaism and driving down to Seward Park for Shabbat meals
with EB members.
Making her
kitchen kosher followed so she could reciprocate invitations
to her observant friends. Eventually, Turin made the move
from Capitol Hill to Seward Park and became fully shomer
shabbat.
Before she became
religious, Turin notes that she was content being single,
"But once I began to see the importance and beauty of family
life, I realized I was really unfulfilled in a very
significant way," she says. "I also realized there were very
few observant single men my age in Seattle whom I didn’t
already know as friends," she adds with a laugh.
For Passover of
2000, Turin made her fourth trip to Israel. Prior visits had
left her with no particularly strong connection to the
country, and certainly no inclination to live there, she
explains.
All that changed
with what she calls "a monumental visit with monumental
spiritual experiences" during that trip.
"Standing at the
Kotel (Western Wall), the site of the Temple, being
blessed by thousands of cohanim, made me feel such a
connection to who I really was," Turin remembers.
On that same
trip, Turin made her first visit to the Cave of the
Patriarchs in Hebron, the burial place of Abraham, Isaac and
Sarah. There she encountered an elderly man who told her:
"Your papa Abraham and mama Sarah are so happy to see you,
and so glad that you’ve come home," she recalls.
"It was a
defining moment in my life," Turin says quietly.
The Torah reading
for the week Turin was born is Chaye Sarah, which
recounts the story of Sarah, who gave birth late in life.
"I was already in
my late 40s and realized that it would soon be too late,"
she says.
Turin says the
trip led her to the realization that "I’m not a ghetto Jew,
my roots are not in Miami, Seattle or Russia – my roots are
here." She vowed to return to Israel within a year, but
found herself missing Israel as soon as she returned to
Seattle.
After arranging a
leave of absence with an understanding boss, Turin planned a
three-month pilot trip to Israel to see if she could make it
as an immigrant.
"From the minute
I made that trip, God was by my side," Turin explains. "When
you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, God helps
you."
In short order,
she closed out her affairs in Seattle, changed her name and
moved to Jerusalem in November 2000. Despite her limited
Hebrew, Turin quickly found work in her field, selling
institutional bonds. Her next task was to go about the
sensitive business of finding a match.
Ezra Bessaroth’s
new rabbi, Solomon Cohen-Scali, provided an introduction to
a rabbinic colleague who heads up a Jerusalem Sephardic
yeshiva. Yaakov Turin, 55, a former New Yorker, was studying
there. Like Nava, Yaakov had never been married, was raised
in a non-observant Ashkenazic family and found Judaism
through the Sephardic tradition.
It took the
couple just eight days before they knew they would get
married. One day, as the Turins were discussing wedding
plans in a downtown Jerusalem café, a homicide bomber blew
herself up close by.
"It made us
realize what’s important in life," Nava says. The wedding
took place in Jerusalem five weeks later.
"We knew we
wanted kids, but due to my age we realized it might not
happen," she continues. But with the help of Israel’s
cutting-edge medical technology, the Turins received the
news on their first wedding anniversary that Nava was
pregnant with twins.
Since then their
life has been a whirlwind of doctor visits, diapers and
decisions.
Reuven and Dov,
born several months premature, celebrated their first
birthdays this September. Nava has resumed her successful
business from home, working on U.S. time in the late
afternoon and evening after her husband returns from work to
care for the kids.
"We’re very
blessed," says Turin. "I’m just so glad that our boys will
grow up with Jewish values in a Jewish country, not yet so
saturated with materialism."
Former Seattle resident Judy Lash Balint is an award-winning Jerusalem-based writer.