Something Beautiful Happened by Yvette Manessis Corporon
Author:Yvette Manessis Corporon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Howard Books
PART FOUR
chapter seventeen
THE ONES WHO STOOD UP
It was love at first phone call.
“Do you speak Greek?” Marcia asked.
“Yes, of course,” I replied.
“I married a Greek. He was my second mistake.”
“What was your first mistake?”
“He was Israeli.”
And with that first conversation, that very first belly laugh, my adoration of Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos was cemented.
Marcia is the director of the Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue and Museum and also president of the Association of Friends of Greek Jewry. From everything I read about her, it seemed to me that Marcia was the world’s leading authority on the Jews of Greece. When we first crossed paths, I thought it was a happy accident, but I soon learned it was nothing of the sort. As Marcia told me, our meeting was beshert, the Hebrew word often used to describe someone’s soul mate. But beshert also has another meaning. As Marcia explained, beshert is also a divine destiny, something that was meant to be. And indeed our meeting was. Marcia would change my life, and the lives of every single person who was touched by the secret of Erikousa.
I first reached out to Marcia in September of 2012, as I was writing When the Cypress Whispers. Wanting to add some more historical context to the book, I began researching more about the Jewish community of Corfu and also the Jewish community across Greece. In article after article, document after document, I kept coming across the same name—Marcia’s. Sorting through all of the articles, documents and research that Marcia had written or been cited in, I figured she would likely be located in Jerusalem, Athens or Thessaloniki, since that’s where much of her research seemed to be centered. But it turns out Marcia was not located in Greece, Israel, in another country or even in another area code. Marcia’s office was just few miles from mine, in a historic synagogue in lower Manhattan. Beshert.
Marcia soon became my Greek Jewish fairy godmother, and she also provided comedic relief when I needed it most. From her Facebook page, I learned Marcia has an affinity, more like a grandmotherly love, for the chickens she keeps in her Long Island yard. Those hilarious poultry-inspired posts offer keen insight into this extraordinary woman’s character. Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos is a woman who lives with gusto, laughs out loud, often breaks into dance and always finds joy, celebrating life at every opportunity. She is also a woman whose every breath is dedicated to telling the stories of the millions of victims who lived and died in the Nazi camps and gas chambers. A woman who lives to remind us that while it is our obligation to never forget, we must also never forget to live. My friend Marcia is the living, breathing personification of the philosophy that each moment of life and freedom is a gift to be savored and celebrated.
It all began as a young girl’s promise to her grandmother. Her grandfather, one of 11 siblings, left Greece before the Nazis came. Those who stayed—more than 112 members of his family from Thessaloniki and 12 from Kavala—were killed.
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