Following in the Footsteps of Ancestors by Zahava Sherez

I heard of my great-great-grandmother Ester Shapira for the first time in March of 2014. That year I joined a guided trip to Argentina to follow the footsteps of the Gauchos Judios*. The only thing I knew about any of my ancestors was that my maternal grandfather Miguel Tepper, was the first one to be born in Argentina and became a Jewish Gaucho.

With the tour group we arrived in a town called Moises Ville. What unfolded opened a door into a family and a family story I never knew.

We were guided to the Jewish cemetery, then to a specific grave where Ester Shapira introduced herself to me; her image, encased in a small nook on her gravestone protected by glass, stared at me.
 
She was born in Ukraine in 1844. In 1888 the family had to flee Ukraine due to violent pogroms against the Jews in many parts of the European continent. My family joined a group of 800 Jews who bought land in one of the only countries that was willing to accept Jewish refugees: Argentina. With big hope for a new, peaceful and safe beginning they sailed into the unknown.  
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What they encountered was the complete opposite of their expectations.
After a more than a month at sea they arrived in Buenos Aires, tired, sick, hungry. There was no one at the port to greet them, show them the way to their new land, or even speak their language Yiddish. They had no choice but to continue their journey to the north of the country were they thought their land was waiting for them. After weeks of traveling on dirt roads they arrived to their destination.
 
They understood then that there was no land, that their money was stolen for no good reason and that they had no plan and no one to turn to. For weeks they sat by the railroad station asking passersby for “pan” (bread), the only word they learn in Spanish. They lost many especially the young children.
 
The story has a happy ending as one day a Jewish doctor was on a train passing by that station and being Jewish was able to understand them. He decided to stay with them and help. He contacted a philanthropist, the Baron Hirsch, a German Jew who was so moved by the story that he bought them land so they can settle and create the community they were longing for. They named the village they founded Moises Ville – The Village of Moses, because they felt they had also walked the desert for 40 years like the Jews who escaped Egypt so many generations ago.
 
With time the family, and the entire community, thrived. Miguel, my grandfather was the first child to be born in the new country.
 
A five consecutive generations of immigrants was born. My parents left Argentina to Israel due to sever anti-Semitism after WWII. I was nine years old. I left Israel for the United States with my three sons to give them the option to grow up as men without wars.

My children are the fifth generation.
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* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_gauchos