Closing the Circle
By Anshel Pfeffer

When Frances Greenberg landed in Israel this morning, she completed a journey that began 61 years ago, when she boarded the Exodus at the French port of Marseille.

Unlike the other illegal immigrants aboard the crowded and rickety ship, who eventually moved to Israel after being turned back by the British in 1947, Greenberg immigrated to St. Petersburg, Florida, instead. But at around 7 A.M. today, Greenberg landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport, eager to finally become an Israeli at the age of 88.

Greenberg, who will be living at the Ahuzat Bayit retirement home in Ra'anana, was one of 210 passengers on a Nefesh B'Nefesh flight from New York. Over the past six years, the organization has facilitated the immigration to Israel of 15,000 Jews from North America and Britain.

"At that time, I saw the Carmel [mountain] from the ship, before the British deported us," she said by phone from Kennedy Airport in New York before boarding the El Al plane to Israel. But, she added, her aliyah was "not destined to happen then."

Nefesh B'Nefesh is proud to be helping Greenberg reach her destination at long last, said co-chairman Danny Ayalon.

"The organization is proud of the privilege that has been given us to help such a special woman with a fascinating personal story close a circle and at long last immigrate to Israel," he said.

Greenberg, who comes from a small town near Warsaw, attempted to move to Mandatory Palestine before World War II even began.

In 1939 Greenberg, who received a Zionist education and speaks excellent Hebrew, tried to obtain an immigration permit by means of a fictitious marriage to a relative who already lived in Palestine, but the British Mandate authorities discovered the ruse and did not authorize her immigration. She fled to Russia when the German army invaded Poland, but the rest of her family - apart from those who had already immigrated to Palestine - was killed in the Holocaust.

Greenberg returned to Poland when the war ended, and made her way to displaced persons camp in Germany. She was going to join one of the groups that was about to board illegal immigrant ships, but a cousin of hers from Palestine who was serving in the British army's Jewish Brigade advised her to board a large ship set to leave from Marseille instead of one of the more crowded ships leaving from Germany.

"One of my relatives used his pull with a senior person at the Jewish Agency, and that's how they found a place for me on the Exodus at the last minute," she said.

Moving to Israel meant giving up the boyfriend she had fallen in love with in the DP camp, Isak Greenberg. He intended to immigrate to the United States, where he had a cousin, and tried to discourage her from moving to Israel.

"At that time I was not prepared to give up the dream of going to Israel, and my whole family was there," she said.

Frances Greenberg didn't know anyone aboard the Exodus, and spent the days at sea helping the many mothers on deck, caring for the babies and small children. She remembers that the British soldiers who boarded the ship "tried to behave like gentlemen and wore white gloves." After being deported by the British authorities in Palestine, Greenberg ended up back in a German DP camp, where the boyfriend she thought she had left behind tracked her down and convinced her to move to America with him.

Frances and Isak married in the DP camp and arrived in St. Petersburg in early 1948. He opened a tailor and dry-cleaning shop and they had a son and daughter, who now lives in Kfar Saba.

"I always wanted to get to Israel, but we had the business, and Isak promised me that when we had saved $1,000, we would go for a visit," she recalled.

Greenberg came to Israel for the first time in 1955, again by ship and again to the Haifa port. But although there were no British authorities to stop her then, she was not yet ready to make the move.

"I had a man who loved me and took me under his wing," she said, sounding apologetic. "I didn't have any alternative anymore after I was deported from Israel."

Several years after Isak's death, Greenberg is finally fulfilling her longtime dream.

"Now at long last I am coming," she said.