The information on this page is based on recollection of what I was told and what I understood to be the case. I am not in possession or aware of any relevant documentation which could corroborate any of the story below.
We understood that Pamela was adopted in Israel by Harry and Manya in the early days of the state. They had returned from London to live on Nahalat Binyamin or Allenby in Tel Aviv after independence in 1948.
The country was recovering from the military onslaught. Money was scarce and only basic infrastructure existed. Adoption procedures were very lax and proper records were not always kept, and there is evidence that there were more than a few cases where infants from eastern communities were taken away from mothers at birth without consent and the parents told the child had died.
Although we do not know the precise circumstances of Pamela’s adoption, we believe she was born around 1940 (possibly 20/08/1940) before the baby scandal occurred, and the adoption would have been in 1948 or later so she would have been around 8 years old which tallies with the earliest photos we have. In those days in England it was conventional and considered best for parents to keep any “difficult” family matters away from children.
While all this is the general understanding in the family and it all tallies with the known chronology, there is one question that it raises; how would an 8 year old child not have been aware of being adopted at that age. However we don’t know what stories she might have been told at the time to explain the new family situation. In the prevailing custom of the time it may have been considered beneficial for her not to be told of difficult and troubling circumstances.
We now think Harry & Manya may have returned before 1948 so possibly she was only 6 or 7 years old when adopted, although, arguably, still old enough though to ask the same question.
Pamela would have served in the Israeli Army in 1958-60 and we believe that it was only when she was called-up that she learnt that she was adopted, and this gave rise ever after to a troubled relationship with Harry and Manya.
Not long after her release from the army, she married Adi Zachor and gave birth to a son Boaz in 1962. It is possible that registering her marriage, rather than her army call-up, may possibly have the event that revealed her adoptive history.
In the meantime Harry and Manya had left Israel in 1961 and returned for the final time to London. We don’t completely know why they left Israel but economic considerations may have played a part.
Adi worked for El Al and in the later 1960s he was assigned to work at Heathrow, and Adi, Pamela and Boaz came to live in London. Pamela is remembered in the family for her loquacity and Adi for his taciturnity.
There is also a British birth record of a girl – Orrit – born to Pamela and Adi in 1968. No one appears to recall or have any knowledge of her and what became of her.
I remember Pamela and Adi coming to our house in Highgate for Seder around that time. Harry and Manya were there but I don’t recall Boaz attending. I even have a cine clip of it (and will post it here when I work out how to do that).
In London in the early 1970s, Pamela became estranged from the family and from her previous life. She refused to allow Boaz to be Barmitzvah, much to Harry & Manya’s chagrin. She left and presumably divorced Adi and met and married an Englishman – I recall hearing that he was Catholic and a policeman. She secretly moved address, changed her surname and changed both Boaz’s firstname and surname and neither have been heard from ever since.
However she is remembered with fondness by her cousins who knew her and we hope she is well and happy wherever she may be.
