First Encounters after 50 years


Sergio Coster, USA1962




When I was 18 and living in Porto Alegre, Brazil, I was lucky enough to go to the United States with a scholarship of American Field Service (AFS). The year was 1961 and I was scheduled to live with a Jewish family in Mahtomedi, Minnesota. Which I did, fitting well with the Schloff family – the parents and their three boys.











During this time I was in correspondence with Shirley Mosner and she invited me to go to stay with them in Nanuet during Christmas vacation. I secured an unusual permit from the Schloffs and from AFS to travel to NY and so I was the first one to connect the Brazilian and the American branches of the Pessach family after more than 50 years. It was then that I got to know Shirley and David Mosner, their children; Great Uncle Sol and Lisa Passick; Irving and Naomi Passick and their children; and Marvin and Sylvia Passick and their two boys. The visit was over and I went back to Minnesota, with lots of memories and some photos.

Jeffrey, Sergio, Joel, 1968


Lisa, Jeffrey and Sol Passick, August 1968

Long Island, NY, August 1968

Miriam Mosner, Michael, Sergio and Daniel
NY, December, 1961

Sergio and Sol at the paint shop, 1962







































Sergio Faermann, one of Mauricio and Martha’s sons, lives in Israel and we are in touch. Zvika Pessach, grandson of Zvi, son of Mordechai, lives in Jerusalem and we are in touch.

Later on I visited some of them again - in 1968 and 2007 in the United States and occasionally received them in Israel along the years: Shirley Mosner, Miriam Suchoff, Joel Passick and lately Sofia Passick.
I arrived in Israel in September 1968, alone and as a tourist, after passing by Brasilia, the Amazon, NY, Minnesota, Wyoming, Iceland, Luxembourg, France, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy and finally Israel – a 6-month trek in all.
After a short time in Israel I went to meet the Israeli branch of the family in Kfar Vitkin – Grandma Sonia, Mordechai and Geula and their children and later on to Nir Banim, to meet Dan and Shula and their children.
So it just happened that I was the first one to get to know all the branches of the family – in Brazil, the United States and Israel – after the five children of Mordko and Mina Pessach left Kamenka, Bessarabia (now part of Transnistria [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria]) - in search of a better life for their future children.
Today, one hundred years later, I can assure you – after hard work, they got it!!!


Jerusalem, January 2018 Sergio

































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