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Anav Silverman Peretz is a 2004 Calais High School graduate. She lives with her husband and three children in a small community in the Negev Highlands of Israel.
I got the call at 5 p.m. on June 11. My sister was sobbing on the phone but coherent enough to relate, “Abba is about to leave us.”
My dad was 91 years old, a special man with an unusual life journey that few have travelled. The last time I saw my father (“abba” in Hebrew) was nearly one year ago in the assisted living facility close to my sister in Atlanta. My young kids, who often mention their grandpa when they play, had been looking forward to our visit with him in another month.
I had been praying that I would get one last chance to see my dad, to hold his hand and hear him say, “I love you.”
Many know my father as the former Maine state Sen. Harold L. Silverman. He is a fourth-generation Mainer who ran his father’s hardware and sporting goods store selling fishing equipment and hunting rifles in Calais for many years and who served in the Maine Legislature for many years. He served as a representative and independent senator and an advisor to former Maine Gov. James Longley.
Dad sponsored legislation to help Maine’s elderly and disabled, and helped bring a community college to Calais, the town he was raised in and where he raised my two sisters and me, alongside my Israeli mother.
Although my father did have a bar mitzvah in the Chaim Yosef Synagogue back when Calais had a Jewish community and rabbi in 1947, he wanted to know more about his faith beyond what his secular parents could provide.
My dad’s journey to his Jewish heritage, however, took place later in life, and eventually brought him to Israel, where he volunteered in Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, a religious farming community close to the Jordanian border. Later in his life, he helped bring over a Torah scroll from the defunct Chaim Yosef Synagogue in Calais to be used in the kibbutz school.
After he unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 1980 against Olympia Snowe, my dad decided the time was right to settle down and marry. Close friends from Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu eventually matched him with a librarian at the National Library of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Rachel Winograd, 36, whom he married at age 48. Upon marriage, my dad had taken on a religious Jewish lifestyle, which my mom followed, and raised us in a strong Jewish home in Calais.
My dad was very proud of his Maine roots and especially of his beloved hometown, Calais, where he had formed many friendships over his lifetime including from the nearby Passamaquoddy tribe and over the river in St. Stephen, New Brunswick.
When I took my daughter Carmel to visit my parents in Maine two years ago, my dad told me, “I cherish this visit to our Calais home so much. Carmel brought us so much joy and light.”
My dad also had a special love for Israel. My parents’ love for the land, people and biblical history of Israel led me to making my home here. When my sister made that call, I was making dinner for my family in my home in the Negev desert.
As I said my final goodbye to my father, a man who inspired so many including his children, I did not imagine the coming ordeal. My dad wanted to be buried in Israel. We had got all the paperwork sorted out and two days later, my sisters, Keseah and Reemon, and brother-in-law Aaron boarded the El Al flights to Israel to lay my father to rest in the holy land.
Four hours into the flight, the planes turned back to New York. The Iran-Israel War had begun, with Israel launching surprise attacks on key military and nuclear facilities in Iran in the early morning hours of Friday, June 13.
In Judaism, it is very important to bury the deceased as quickly as possible. After consulting some rabbis, we decided to hold a temporary funeral for dad in Atlanta until the skies opened again.
In the meantime, I sat shiva (seven-day mourning period) in our home, spending hours in the bomb shelter, amid sirens and ballistic missiles firing on Israel. We are lucky that we live in the “rural” part of the Negev. Forty minutes away in the heavily populated city of Beer Sheva, ballistic missiles rained constantly, partially destroying the hospital where my three children were born.
One morning before anyone woke up, I took a short walk in the desert outside our home. The white moon was fading in the lavender sky as the pink sun peeked over the rocky hills. I prayed that my dad was at peace during this point of his journey and that following Israel’s operation, our region would be peaceful too. I whispered to the brightening sky, “I love you Abba,” hoping my words would reach him.
