Media Room

SIGD celebration at Nishmat

This year's Sigd was incredible. After the welcoming remarks, one student's mother addressed the crowd with great appreciation for everything Nishmat provides her daughter, and all of their daughters- education, empowerment, and pride in their heritage. She told of her immigration, how they hid each night in the dessert to avoid being caught and killed. She recounted the very moving story of almost being caught, but miraculously saved one night before making it to Israel.

Instead of a series of vignettes, this year the story followed one young woman, "Orit" as she dates and marries a "Netch" or Ashkenazi Israeli. In the beginning she proudly defies her parents tradition and feels she has "made it" as an Israeli. However, when she is expecting her first child,  her feelings turn to uncertainty and regret, at her perceived inability to transmit her family's tradition and culture to her unborn child. She seeks the counsel of her older sisters and parents to finally try to understand from where she has come, her personal history, and the importance of passing it on. Orit's mother, tearfully recounts the struggle to cross the Sudan, how she met Orit's father, and how he helped bury Orit's grandfather and continue moving the family towards Jerusalem. The Story concludes, as Orit stands with her baby son at his brit milah, and he is given the name "Dvir Tesfahoon" with the hope that his future will be filled with love and pride of both sides of his heritage.

The Sigd was generously sponsored by the Morris and Beverly Baker Foundation of Detroit