I got an email from a cousin in Israel, Shmuel, alerting me to the exciting news that his sister, Ruthie, and her daughter, Tamar, whom I’d never met, would be arriving for a brief visit in New York. They’d love to meet with any of the cousins in the area who might be around.
I quickly shot off a group email, and in short order discovered that while one would be in Maine during the designated days, the cousins in Brooklyn, Westchester, and New Jersey were available for lunch on Thursday. All of the American cousins except one speak some Hebrew. Ruthie and Tamar both speak some English. So I was not worried about our ability to communicate once we were face to face.
However, getting to that point proved to be challenging.
We were in the midst of choosing locations, when I got a second missive from Shmuel alerting me to an obvious misunderstanding, His sister wasn’t landing until late Thursday afternoon. Saturday lunch was preferred.
That let out the Westchester and Brooklyn cousins, both of whom are observant. We were down to two from the US and two from Israel.
I emailed both to confirm time. The Westchester cousin, Dave, responded in a flash with a suggestion for the meeting point. But I heard nothing back from Ruthie. Suspecting that she might not be on email, I WhatsApp’d her. She responded within seconds. She had theater tickets for Friday and Saturday evenings, so she really was only available to meet on Saturday for lunch.
I called Dave to get his WhatsApp contact info – hoping to find some common, synchronous method of communication. I could almost see him shudder through the phone connection. He doesn’t text either. He puts as little as possible about himself as possible online. In fact, he would only let me write about this if I didn’t use his real name.
The only way to connect someone who emails with someone who WhatsApps is via a translator. A human one. Like me.
And that’s what happened for the next few days, for every interaction. Dave emailed me the name and address of the restaurant. I WhatsApp’d it to Ruthie. Ruthie WhatsApe’d me a photo of her and her daughter, so we could recognize them. I copied and pasted it into an email to Dave. Dave let me know when his train was arriving, I What’sAppp’d Ruthie. She WhatsApp’d me what show she was seeing (Momma Mia!) and the start time. I didn’t bother transmitting that to Dave.
Of course, I took a group photo after lunch, which I emailed to Dave and WhatsApp’d to Ruthie. Dave said I couldn’t include it here, even with his face obscured. But we did have a wonderful time.
She WhatsApp’d me asking me to share with Dave how much she enjoyed meeting us both. I transmitted that message using old technology. I called his land line.
Joann Abraham began chronicling Jewish life as editor of Monmouth County’s Jewish newspaper, now defunct, and has written for national and international publications. She is a contributing writer to Jlife Magazine.
