My parents emigrated from Yemen in 1949. They arrived at the transit camp near Kfar Shalem. That is where we lived. I was born in 1951 and my brother in 1953.

One Saturday my brother did not feel well and my parents took him by foot to Hadassah Hospital in Tel Aviv. The baby was hospitalized. On Sunday his grandfather went to visit him and was told to sit and wait outside of his room. The doctor came out and told my grandfather the baby was being treated. At noon the doctor saw my grandfather again and asked him why he was still there.

“Waiting for my grandchild,” my grandfather replied.

“The boy is already dead,” the doctor said.

My grandfather asked to see the body.

“He is already buried,” the doctor said.

All this within the few hours that my grandfather had been sitting there. Their whole lives, my parents did not want to talk about this story.

Ovadia Tayiri