From Carlos and Gabby's to G-d, part 2

Posted

By Michael Orbach

Issue of March 5, 2010/ 20 Adar, 5770

Her name is Daniella Saffioti and she would like to say thank you.

Raised by her grandmother in Lawrence, Daniella, 23, converted to Judaism after working in a local kosher Mexican restaurant. She was originally profiled in the Jewish Star in August 2008, in “From Carlos and Gabby’s to G-d,” where she spoke about her bumpy journey to Judaism.

“I always thought I was Jewish, just born to the wrong family,” she said at the time.

In two weeks she will be celebrating her wedding to Yishai Romanoff, 24, of West Hempstead. They were set up by a shadchan in Israel and plan to live in Far Rockaway after their marriage.

Daniella said she received a tremendous amount of community support and she contacted The Jewish Star to inquire about writing a thank you note.

“Every struggle, I knew it was only going to be good, [but] I never expected it to be this good,” Daniella explained. “I had to be optimistic because I knew it was really hard to convert; I was put through so many tests. I’ve been on cloud nine for the last two months.”

Since her conversion she has lived with the Weinbergs, a Woodmere family. The Claire Kamhi Hachnasat Kallah Fund directed by Nicole Gleitman is making arrangements for the wedding. Students at the Stella K. Abraham High School for Girls (SKA) and the Davis Renov Stahler Yeshiva High School for Boys (DRS) are helping to put the wedding together. The senior class of SKA threw a bridal shower for Daniella last week.

“I was terrified and embarrassed to go, to show that I didn’t have any money for my own wedding,” she said, but her feelings changed once she arrived. “There were a hundred girls there; the house was packed and I feel like I’ve known them forever. They got me gifts; it was mind-blowing. We grew up anti-Semitic and my cousin comes up to me and says, ‘No other religion does this. You look so happy. You look so complete.’ I felt so proud to be Jewish; to show them that this is what we do.”

The classes are also setting up the wedding hall at the Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst.

“The boys and girls are decorating, at different times of course; they can’t mingle,” she laughed.

Daniella has also rekindled her relationship with her mother.

“She actually brags to people about her daughter being an Orthodox Jew,” she said.

As for her grandmother, with whom she had a difficult relationship, and who was not especially fond of Jews, Daniella says she thinks she’s “turning over in her grave.”

“But,” she said, “I think she’d be really happy and very accepting.” The two had a rapprochement of sorts shortly before the grandmother’s death.

Daniella asked to thank a number of individuals and families: Sue Weinberg, Nicole Gleitman, Robbie Klein, Dovid and Andrea Steiner, Rabbi Osher and Yaffa Jungreis, and her rabbi, Rabbi Mordcha Ehrlich and his family.

“He’s my father,” Daniella said about Rabbi Ehrlich. “I had an epiphany: I was born not Jewish because Hashem couldn’t decide which family to put me in, so he gave me all these families.”