Elsa Wilen grew up in Bogota Colombia. When her Hungarian born, adventurous father decided to leave Europe he went to the dock, saw two ships about to leave, one to Morocco and one to Colombia, and randomly chose the voyage bound to South America.
Growing up in Colombia in a traditional Jewish family, but not always able to go to Jewish schools, Elsa recalls how in the catholic elementary school she attended she would be sent by the teacher to the chapel, "to pay attention to Jesus" as she puts it. That was until someone told Elsa's mother and she put a stop to that. As a child, Elsa laughs, she was disappointed that her nice little daily alone time out of class was cancelled.
At 15 Elsa moves with her grandparents to Israel, excited as a young teenager to be having this new and cool adventure. She enrolls in a dormitory school but then soon starts to feel that this move was a big mistake.
That adventure lasted 6 months and then she came home.
Later as a young adult living in New York, working and enjoying the city life, she meets her future husband and is married within months of the move to the United States. Her female colleagues at work were in shock.
From a young child growing up in Bogota Colombia, witnessing the 1948 violent riots after the assassination of the Liberal party leader, having her parent's shop ransacked, and then a month later quietly celebrating with the rest of the Jewish community the declaration of the state of Israel, to a teenager, studying in the very demanding French school in the area, accumulating the equivalent of a few years of college education while still in high school, to a young adult, living in New York and taking advantage of all that city life can offer, to a young mother, that at first felt like an older sister to her eldest daughter, raising 3 children, building the foundation for their close family relationship, to a manager of a company she and her husband bought a little over a decade before retirement, to a grandmother and great grandmother who says with a smile that grandchildren are the profits you get from all your early investments, this is the story of Elsa Wilen.
Soundtrack Credits:
Music by Julius H. from https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=2713">Pixabay
Music by Coma-Media from https://pixabay.com/music//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=12099">Pixabay
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Music by ArtSlop_Flodur from https://pixabay.com/music//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=11681">Pixabay
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