May 6, 2013

Mega Mission Bus Plants Community Garden in Memory of Fellow Participant

In April 2012, Roberta Tschernia put her cancer treatments on hold to live out her lifelong dream of visiting Israel.

Along with more than 700 others on the Greater Miami Jewish Federation’s Miami Mega Mission, Roberta took in the beauty of our spiritual homeland without so much as a single complaint. Everything about Israel was amazing and beautiful in her eyes.

Unfortunately, Roberta passed away in January at the age of 72. Her bus mates from the Mega Mission collected money to plant what they thought would be a few trees somewhere in Israel, in Roberta’s memory.

The trees were planted in Pardes Channa-Karkur (where the Federation is engaged in a partnership with the town’s more than 1,600 Ethiopian-Israeli residents), in what is now the Community Garden. The trees will supply fruit to Pardes Channa’s senior population, along with vegetables community members already planted.

For many of Roberta’s bus mates and friends, there is comfort knowing her memory will forever be present in the one place she always wanted to visit: Eretz Yisrael.

Enjoy these photos of the Community Garden as it flourishes in Pardes Channa-Karkur.