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Renee Stark with her daughter Shana in 0
their Raananah home.

Forty Years Wandering
To The Promised Land

SHELLEY NADIV

Special to The Jewish News

W

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26325 TWELVE MILE ROAD
SOUTHFIELD, MICHIGAN
IN THE MAYFAIR SHOPS AT
NORTHWESTERN HIGHWAY
HOLIDAY HOURS

hen Moses led the
Jews out of Egypt,
it took nearly 40
years of wandering around
the Sinai until they finally
reached the Promised Land.
With today's modern trans-
portation one can make it
from Tel Aviv to Cairo in a
matter of hours. There are
some people, however, who
like to stick to tradition and
end up taking the long way
home.
When Renee Stark nee
Bizaoui was six years old, the
1956 war broke out between
Israel and Egypt. As always
in Egypt during wartime,
there were blackouts and cur-
fews and an abundance of
personal suffering. Renee's
father was a very prominent,
wealthy businessman, but
being Jewish made him vul-
nerable to suspicion. Over-
night he was forced to flee
Egypt for France. A short
time later, Renee, her mother
and sister escaped from
Egypt, leaving everything
behind except a few pieces of
jewelry and joined her father.
"It was an unbelievable
shock to all of us. We had
lived a life of luxury with
servants, a huge mansion-
like home, and suddenly we
were left with nothing, living
in a one room apartment,"
Renee recalls.
Though Arabic is Egypts'
native tongue, Renee and her
family had always spoken
French at home. Despite the
familiarity with the lan-

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(313) 353-1424

42

Friday, December 5, 1986

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Shelley Sherman Nadiv is a
Detroiter who has lived in
Israel.

guage, adjusting to life in
France was extremely dif-
ficult. After the birth of two
more sisters and a brother,
Renee's • father decided to
move to America. In Egypt
he had been in the scrap iron
business and, due to his past
experience, HIAS — an
American organization that
deals with immigrants —
sent him to Detroit.
"There is no way we could
have made it without the
Jewish HIAS", Renee says.
"They found us a house with
all new furnishings, paid our
rent for three months, loaned
us money, helped my father
find a job and sent us to spe-
cial schools to learn English,
even though television taught
me more English than the
school did!"

After awhile the family
moved to a house at Ford and
Livernois and Renee finished
her education, first at Derby
Junior High School and then
at Mumford High School.
"My first job at 14 was as a
coat check girl at the old JCC
on Meyers," she says. "I made
50 cents an hour and in those
days, that was a lot of
money!"

In September 1974, Renee
went with a girlfriend to Is-
rael to visit her cousin. One
week before they were plan-
ning to leave Israel, Renee
met her husband Itzhak
Stork, who sent Renee's
friend home but refused to let
Renee go.
"Four month's after we met
we were married," she ex-
plains. "The day we met It-
zhak said, This is the girl
I'm going to marry.' I didn't
agree until four months later.
Two months after our mar-
riage we moved to Oak Park
and two months after that I