I am a proud graduate of the Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston; they are doing cards of their alumni. Here’s mine.

Yediot Aharonot

Presenting: Abramowitz & Silverman!

Mom’s a rabbi; Aunt Sarah’s a comedian • Dad was nominated for both the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes; but closest to his heart is his solar energy project in the Arava • They’re the parents of five - two adopted from Ethiopia - and they live in Jerusalem • Meet the most optimistic, Zionist family of them all

By Nechama Duek; photos: Alex Kolomoisky

[family photo caption]: “They quarrel like all kids do, but they also admire each other.” Susan and Yosef with (from left): Hallel, Aliza, Zamir, Ashira (lying on top of couch), and Adar

A large photo of one of America’s most successful comedians, Sarah Silverman, hangs in the living room of this Jerusalem home. With her in the photo are her three sisters: Laura, who acted with Sarah in her popular TV show; author and screenwriter Jody; and Susan, a rabbi living in Jerusalem, in whose living room the photo hangs. Susan looks at the photo and smiles. “She was always our baby,” she says of Sarah, the youngest of the four. “When she was two, she’d sit on Dad’s lap and cuss. But she was so cute that everyone just laughed.”

Susan herself lives quite an exceptional life. Her brood of five - two of them adopted -run around constantly in the busy, never-a-dull-moment home. Susan, husband Yosef Abramowitz, and their five children immigrated from the US four years ago, and since then have navigated between various Zionist projects, family life, acclimating to a new country, and the family’s atypical yet proud background. “I know our family is unusual,” says Aliza, 17, “but it’s fun. Who said we all have to be alike? Can’t argue with that.
The “Israeli bee in their bonnet”

The Abramowitz-Silvermans’ lives in the US were not bad at all, “even perfect,” says Susan, 47. Until four years ago, they lived in Boston, where Yosef was a consultant and educator and headed the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (www.fsumonitor.com) , which helped Jews emigrate to Israel, and was engaged on behalf of human rights and religious freedom in the former USSR. From the mid-1980s, he was active in the Soviet Jews’ struggle, and was even arrested during a demonstration in front of the Soviet embassy in the US.

On the basis of his activism, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by a group of American professors and Russian and US legislators. But Yosef didn’t stop there; he was also active in bringing Ethiopian and Yemenite Jews to Israel, engaged in journalism, and researched the Jewish world, which led to two candidacies for the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism. Together with Susan, he co-authored Jewish Family and Life: Tradition, Holidays, and Values, a guide for raising a Jewish family that went bestseller in the US.

At the same time, Susan graduated from Harvard and then was ordained as a rabbi, in which capacity she headed a congregation for several years while starting a family. Yet although she enjoyed her work, Yosef had an itch to go to Israel. Yosef, who years before had volunteered at Kibbutz Ketura, dreamed of aliya. Susan, who was less enthused, agreed, on the condition that they live “as far as possible from Jerusalem”. “No problem,” said Yosef. “We’ll go to Ketura.”

“Susan didn’t want to live in Jerusalem because I’m a trouble-maker,” explains Yosef. “She knows that [if I live in the city] I immediately find causes and get involved in politics. All she wanted was for our family to be together, in tranquility and quiet, without all my goings-on.” Three years in the desert was enough for Susan, and she asked Yosef to move to Jerusalem. “We realized that each of our children has his or her own needs, which unfortunately could not be filled on the kibbutz,” adds Yosef. “In Jerusalem, we found wonderful schools for all of them. After all, it’s the holy city.”

Presently Susan is conducting research at the Mandel Leadership Institute, in whose framework she is writing a book on adoption and Judaism, the objective of which is to guide congregations, rabbis, and laypeople in talking about adoption in Jewish terms. When she finishes writing her book, she intends to start a Web site on the topic that will act as a link between Jewish congregations and orphanages worldwide. Since she’s been in Israel, Susan has not practiced as a rabbi. She misses the States: her family, her sisters. But for the moment - she emphasizes the word “moment” - she’s here.

And as long as they’re here, Yosef surges full-steam ahead. At 45, he already serves as President of Arava Power, Israel’s leading solar energy producer. Over the years, Yosef’s activities have borne more than a few fruits: He’s been nominated three times for the Nobel Prize, and twice for the Pulitzer for his investigative reporting. “I was privileged to be in the right place during historic struggles,” he says modestly of his Nobel nomination. I have a Master’s in journalism from Columbia [University]; I wrote a series of articles on Ethiopian Jews and on the Sudanese refugees that was published in the American Jewish press and the Jerusalem Post. Unfortunately, I didn’t win either prize, but that was only the lead-in to my true passion,”

Which is…?

“Arava Power.”
The road to Ketura

The Abramowitz-Silvermans made their way to Ketura the day they arrived in Israel and were issued their immigrant ID cards. “The first thing I did was visit Trumpeldor Cemetery and to hello to my hero, Ahad ha’Am,” says Yosef. “From there we went to Ben-Gurion’s grave, as Paula is a distant relative on my mother’s side. We arrived at Ketura at sundown.”

“It was hot. The sun was setting, but it still felt like it was searing my skin. The first thought that ran through my head was that surely Ketura runs all its production branches and appliances on solar energy. I asked [about it] and was told no, they use conventional electricity. I said, well surely somewhere in the area they use solar. No, they said; conventional. I said, surely somewhere in Israel? The answer: No.”

At that moment, Yosef realized that early retirement and writing a book would have to wait. “A short while later, we formed a company in partnership with Ketura and foreign investors to build solar fields,” says Yosef, who himself has a 10% stake in Arava Power, along with the JNF, Ketura, the investors, and German giant Siemens, which has a 36% stake. So far $23 million has been invested.

As per the law, the Israel Electric Corporation is bound to purchase solar-produced electricity, and the Defense Ministry has already signed a contract for providing electricity to the IDF with a company that operates such fields. Estimates forecast that within 10 years, Israel’s solar fields will supply 4,000 megawatts, or 20% of Israel’s electricity consumption, a quantity valued at ₪ 20 billion annually.

Yosef laughs uproariously when I ask him if he’s already gotten rich off the deal. “Maybe someday,” he smiles. “On the kibbutz, I learned an important rule: One step at a time. Take it slow. For the past four years, we’ve been doing nothing but work. There are and were a million things that need changing and adjusting, [bureaucratic] codes that needed cracking — and we triumphed! Soon Israel will have its first mid- and large-sized solar fields. I hope to dedicate ours this Independence Day.”

Yet despite its success and the bright future predicted for solar energy in Israel, Yosef says that the money is less important to him than the principle. “I have a mission. My place is here,” he says. “Despite the fact that my wife would perhaps rather we live in the US, near our families, we’re here. I’m a part of it all.”

Yosef is also politically involved. Two elections ago, he was no. 3 on the Ethiopian list[ת1] , and in the last elections, he was no. 36 on Yeruka-Meimad. “I’m neither right nor left,” he explains. “I’m environmentalist for whom the Jewish state is dear. I want us to once again be a light unto the nations.”
Way before Madonna

It’s not easy to be so active and raise a large family, but Susan and Yosef somehow manage it. Aliza, 17, and Hallel, 15, were born in the US, after which their parents adopted Adar, now 11, when he was a few months old. Then along came Ashira, now seven, whose name was taken from the Song of Moses [Exodus 15:1]; and four years ago they adopted Zamir, now eight, when he was four years old.

Susan knew even as a little girl that she would adopt. Her own parents were foster parents, and serving humanity is “in her DNA”. Way before Madonna put adopting in Africa in the headlines, a young Susan told her mother that when she grew up and got married, she would adopt a child from every country. “In the context of all of Yosef’s projects, he was in contact with the Ethiopian community, so we decided to adopt in Ethiopia,” Susan explains. “We got in touch with an agency and asked them to find us a child.”

At Susan’s side sits 11-year-old Adar, listening for the who-knows-how-many times to the story of his adoption. “We sent them all the documents, and they offered us a bunch of children,” Susan continues. “Yosef told them to inform us of all children coming into the orphanage. He told me that we’d adopt the first one to arrive on Purim, that that would be our child. When I asked him how we’d know, he just said, ‘We’ll know’. And he’s named Adar, proof that it happened just that way.”

So does that mean he arrived on Purim?

“And how. On Purim, they called us and told us that a child had just arrived that day. Yosef told them that that was our child, and nine months later, he was ours. In the meantime, we printed out pictures of ourselves and the girls, and my mother compiled them together. We sent them to the orphanage and asked them to put the photos in Adar’s crib, so that every time he awoke, he’d see us. Finally they notified us that we could come get him. When we arrived, they took us to where he was. We walked straight over to him and picked him up, and he smiled. We could see that he recognized us right off the bat.”

Both boys were adopted while the Abramowitz-Silvermans were living in the US, and made aliya along with their parents in 2006. Huge-eyed Zamir was adopted at the age of three and a half. Susan and Yosef chose him from DVD clips sent to them from the orphanage.

How do you choose a child from pictures?

“In one of the clips, Zamir’s head was bandaged,” Susan recounts. We called the orphanage director and asked her about it. She replied that he’d been involved in a ‘scrap’ with another child. Yosef said, ‘OK. That’s our son.’ And it’s been tremendous.”

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