On Shavuot, we read about Ruth the Moabite, whose immortal words in the Book of Ruth to her mother-in-law, Naomi, “Your people are my people, your God is my God,” have inspired countless converts through the centuries.
In that spirit, here is the story of Swiss sisters Sarah and Judith, who cast their lot with the Jewish people out of the conviction that “The Jewish way of life is unparalleled in terms of moral excelling and spiritual depth,” as the younger sister, Sarah, puts it.
The girls were born in the village of Endingen, to a Catholic family. Although the family moved away when Sarah was just a year old, they were ingrained with a lifelong affinity for the Jewish people who made up about half the population of this village where their mother was raised.
In fact, though Sarah was originally named Barbara, her mother told her later that she would have preferred the name Sarah or Rebecca, and so upon conversion, she chose Sarah.
Her grandmother ran an inn where the rooms under the eaves were provided free to Polish Jewish peddlers passing through town. Her maternal grandfather, who died before Sarah was born, was concerned about a possible Nazi invasion during World War II and told their Jewish neighbors he would hide as many of them as possible in the cellars of the inn if necessary.
“My grandfather was willing to risk his life and the lives of his family in order to save their Jewish neighbors,” though fortunately it never came to that.
After marrying her mother, Sarah’s father went to live at the inn, too.
“The result of close contact with their Jewish neighbors was that my grandmother’s, mother’s, and father’s Swiss German – and ours – was full of Yiddish expressions,” Sarah says.
“After my parents and my grandmother moved away from Endingen, they missed their Jewish neighbors dearly and kept talking about them.”
Their mother told them that as a child she went on a sukkah hop every year in Endingen and loved tasting matzah on Passover. She said that the Jews were good people, learned and cultured but not arrogant, full of kindness and humility.
This positive impression was reinforced in the sisters by bullying incidents they suffered later in a “sleepy little village” where they lived during their elementary and high school years. Her family, being newcomers from a different part of Switzerland, were considered outsiders.
“Every day after school the kids would chase us, beat us up, and throw rocks at us. One time, in the middle of winter, they threw us into the ice-cold water of a fountain. Later, I realized that this deep psychological trauma enabled us to identify with anybody who was persecuted,” Sarah says.
“I think I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t go through that.”
At ages 12 and 13, the sisters read The Diary of Anne Frank and were horrified. “We immersed ourselves in Jewish history and at the same time, we also became disenchanted with Christianity. We started looking into other religions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism, but nothing really worked for us. So we decided to stick with the Five Books of Moses. My sister, the intellectual one, took me to lectures and recommended books to read,” Sarah relates.
Encountering Jews for the first time
The first time they, as adults, actually encountered Jews was at a lecture on the dire situation of Soviet Jewry in 1972. “They were so nice. We saw that our mother was right; the Jews are wonderful people.”
The girls went to the next lecture as well, which was on the meaning of the Ten Commandments from a Jewish perspective.
“The rabbi started to talk, and my sister and I just looked at each other. No words were necessary. This was what we’d been looking for – the stress on good deeds, the striving to lead a moral life, learning biblical texts deeply, and celebrating Shabbat within the family, not only in the synagogue.”
They decided immediately that their ingrained love for the Jewish people and their quest to find the right religion had dovetailed. The sisters initially worried that it might not be possible to convert to Judaism and were relieved to find out it was. They made time to study for the next three years, using a book list compiled by a rabbi in nearby Bern.
Sarah emphasizes that their parents were understanding and respectful of their decision to convert and lead an observant Jewish lifestyle.
IN 1975, when Sarah finished high school, the sisters went to Kibbutz Yavne for six months to learn Hebrew. The kibbutz provided a private teacher to prepare them for conversion. Judith remained in Israel, earned a master’s degree in Jewish philosophy at Bar-Ilan University, and married an Israeli of Persian descent, with whom she had six children. In later years, the couple served as day school teachers in various Diaspora communities. Today Judith lives in Basel.
Sarah returned to Switzerland in 1976 as an observant Jew. She earned a master’s degree in German and French literature in Zurich. In 1980, she married Richard Fraiman, a Bostonian she’d met the year before in Israel.
They made aliyah to Jerusalem and had three children – Esther, Naftali, and Zohar. The family lived in the Boston area from 1988 to 1993. Sarah earned a PhD from Brandeis University in comparative literature, specializing in Jewish writers. When they returned to Israel, they lived for 10 years in Hashmonaim. In 1996, Sarah became an assistant professor at Bar-Ilan University in comparative literature.
The Fraimans’ marriage ended in 2001, and eventually Sarah was introduced by Judith to the widowed Swiss chief rabbi Yair Marcel Ebel, head of the rabbinical court of Zurich. They wed in 2013 and lived in Zurich until 2017.
“My husband wanted to make aliyah all his life and had sent his four daughters to Israel. They have given him 18 Israeli grandchildren. His daughters accepted me fully, and their children often affectionately call me ‘Saftush,’ although they know that I am not their biological grandmother.” Sarah also dotes on her three biological grandchildren from her daughter Esther.
The Ebels live in the Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood of Jerusalem.
Sarah wasn’t sure how she might react if times got tough for the Jewish people, which she knew from Jewish history could happen again.
“Now the answer is clear. As it says in Megillat Rut, I feel completely that ‘Your people are my people and your God is my God.’ I used to travel quite a bit to Europe, but since October 7 I just want to be here with my people.” ■
Sarah Ebel Fraiman, 67 From Switzerland to Jerusalem, 1980