Shimon (Steve) Arbel & Josie Zaldin Arbel

We met early in the summer of 1969 (my first summer at Ramah – Shimon had been going for a few years) when the Women’s League were visiting and 2 senior (it was called Machon then) campers were chosen to speak to them. We were “just friends” for a long time, with mutual friends, in USY & seeing each other at ECRUSY events (I’m from Toronto, Shimon’s from Hamilton) but we were not a couple.

Shimon moved to Israel in the summer of 1973, and on a visit back to Canada in winter of 1976, bored because he had lost touch with people, looked me up. At the time, I was studying in Boston but was home in Toronto on winter break.

We stayed in touch between Jerusalem and Boston, and got married in December 1979. We made aliyah in August 1984. We have three children. Rena was a Jewish Agency young shlichah to Ramah Berkshires after the army, & is now a shlichah in Manchester England. Noam is a company commander in Tzahal, and Adina is now making her plans for university study.

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