מכתבים מאלמה

בהתמדה, מידי שבוע, חודש, תקופה, עונה. בכתב יד נאה, במכונת כתיבה, על נייר פרגמנט או נייר צילום, עם תמונה או איור - ועם הרבה רגש ואהבה. מכתבים, פתקים, הודעות ורשמים, קטעי יומן ושירים, את כולם כתבה ושלחה אלי אלמה מיום הפגישה ועד יום מותה.

מכתביה של אלמה אלי ואל משפחתי מוצגים במיני אתר נפרד וגם בדף מיוחד שהקמתי בפייסבוק תחת השם  "Letters From Alma", אם אהבתם את הדף בפייסבוק אתם מוזמנים להרשם ואם אהבתם מכתב מסוים אני מזמין אתכם לעשות לי Like.

קישור לדף בפייסבוק Letters From Alma

קישור לאתר מכתבים מאלמה


Dear Rony,
I knew your mother from our high school days; I went to Newton High and I think she went to Belmont High. We remained friends until about age 19 or or so when I went away to college in Vemonet and we lost touch. We shared so many hopes and dreams; hers were always about being a dancer. She was always going to dance classes and spent many hours at practice We both wanted to know the world and experience all that we could We went to coffee shops in Boston and loved Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.

I woke up this morning having a dream about her; we were together someplace and I immediately went to my computer to google her. I read your yours and her story and tears have poured out of my eyes. She was always remarkable in a charismatic and almost fearless way; I admired her and loved her as a friend. I am so sorry to hear she is gone and so happy to know that she was able to have the joy of knowing her son.

All the very best to you and your family,

Paula Zibbell Ponce


יומני היקר:
" בתיכון הבנים אמרו לי שלא אוכל לשחק איתם עד שאתפתח. הרגשתי גאה בחזה שלי, מתנפח ומתפתח. כאשר רקדתי רציתי שיהיה לי חזה שטוח. השכנה הייתה זו שנתנה לי את החזייה הראשונה שלי. את אימא זה לא עניין.
כאשר קיבלתי מחזור הייתי כבר בוגרת וחיכיתי לזה, למרות שבתוכי קיוויתי שזה לא יגיע בגלל הריקוד.
אימא התייחסה למחזור שלי כאל דבר של מה בכך אז התקשרתי למרג'י כדי לברר איך לשים קוטקס. לעתים נדירות בלבד הזכרתי את המחזור בפני אימא ".

זיכרונות משנת 1955, מתוך יומן זיקים-נפולי -רומא 1962

" At five or seven grade,  the boys told me I could not play with them until I developed. I felt pride in my breasts swelling & wanted to develop.
Dancing wanted me to not develop – to have a flat chest.
It was the neighbors who supplied me with my first bra. Mother didn't seem interested.
When my period came I was already mature & waiting for it although I hoped it wouldn't come because of dancing. To my mother I took it as an everyday thing, but called up Margie to find out how to put on Rotex. I rarely mentioned my period to ma ".

יומני היקר... השנה היא 1955 ואני מתפתחת...

מכתב ליוסי אפשטין 29 ליולי 2001

ד"ר אפשטין היקר,
אני מברכת אותך ומוסיפה ברכת תודה גדולה.
אני מקווה לפגוש אותך בקרוב, להביע שוב את תודתי העמוקה ולענות על השאלות שודאי מסקרנות אותך.
הרגשות מציפות אותי ויש על ליבי הרבה מה לומר,
רוני, לו קראתי 'יורה', הוא אדם מאוד מיוחד.
אני מאחלת לך כל טוב ובריאות ליהודית,

בכבוד רב,
אלמה יורה

Dear Dr Epstein
I greet you with much gratitude.
I hope soon to meet you to xpress this and with
information you may have been curious about.
There is now too much to feel, to say -
Rony, whome I named Yorai, is a very special human.
I wish the best for you and for the health of Judith -

Alma Yoray


Rony, You...

This photo was taken probably a week after you were born.
Eddie, my father, your grandfather took it... and I can
imagine it was not a happy occassion, because he always made
us upset when he wanted to take a picture. There is another
photo somewhere before you were born when near the Dead Sea
he made me chase after a camel to take a picture with it.
He did not believe in takkng pictures without people, and
him of someone else close, i n it.

I look pretty together in the picture, like I could take on
the whole ocean, but I am falling apart inside snd probably
not happy that he is around. He thought it is proper that I
be made to feel guiltg, but a t the same time he was doing the
same thing, and with a non-Jewish woman. He had just been
divorced and just baving heart trouble. About 8 months later
he had one of the first in the usa Pace Makers put into his
chest. Then it was a tremendous operation.

This picture is also the beginning of a long inner emotional
journey for me, which I. spoke to you about.
But look how lovely everything looks in the picture, and the
reality was so different .
Ah, so. Don't forget to send me pictures !!!!

Happy day - Love - Mom



This is your grandfather saying "Cheese".
This is probably the only time he wrote to me, except when I went to summer camp as a children, The year is prubably 1969 + or -, He died in 1972 or 1973.
I have his pen for you/
The ice has melted on the lake hear + the wather is blue!

Love to you, 



These paintings are done by a young woman(*) from Krakow. She borrowed dance photos that are black and white and over two years put her own imagination to them.
The two in blue are 130-105cm and the brown one 100-80cm. they all are a kind of oil paint. She wants to give me one, whichever. but I don't want things. So if you do... let me know SOON.
I would send you some red/mellow yellow leaves, but the customs would not like it. there is a wine that turned such a rich deep wine/cherry red... I don't know how to tell you the color.
I drive down the fast road to Boston' trying to capture the colors, for it takes a half-minute for the color to sink into the "being", but the car goes too fast. The sun is lower in the sky and more comes into the windows. All the light in the room shifts by the minute. Like being in a boat on a sea of light. I wish you are here so I can see how you react to the leaves...


(*) Karmila Berny


Dear Ronson... You, there!

When I got back here nothing was where it was i n the bookcase.
They had taken it apart to insulate the back wall against Radon
gas, and had to take down the bookcase... and I came accros
this little painting I come accros about once a year for the last nine.
The woman taught massage here and her husband who I think
builds and remodels houses painted this. They live in Maine...
in a special place near where Vicki, mine, lives. In their
particular town the people who immigrated there, intellectuals
from the cities, like me and about the same generation decided
to start a community with shared responsibilities, like one
have the cow and the other chickens, one is docotr, the other
a lawyer. They don't live close, but under the same town.
The services they extend to people who can't afford it also in the
community. So they protect eachother, but aren't that close
undereachother noses.

I like this little painting because it is useing 2 or 3 colors...
how the boat is coming in on a diagonal giving more depth to
the scene... and the pepce of mind because there is no wind, or
only the movement of air of the earth we're turning with.
As you said. Like we're all  n the same boat together. Amen.

The forsythia bush just in front of my quarters first blooms
such a yellow, nothing's as bright in the whole scene of budding
trees behind it, not the off-red roofs, nor the ihew light green
leaves of the uncurking birchtrees... nothing all the way up
the oposite...to call it a mountain or just a hill . This yellow
is like you just plunked down the sun, son.

And then you know what , when the sum does come up and lights
on the forsythia , I bet it's as bright as holy Moses's.

So, your eye is better fit to view this little painting.
I hope it pleases you.

Love, Alma