Every year, Colette’s birthday was a grand affair! She was born on January 28th, like her famous ancestor, Dona Gracia and, like her, devoted her life to help her people and people in general. Like her, she came to the holy land out of love and stayed in it to her last day.
In spite of the small size of her flat, she kept the tradition of her family and gave receptions as if she still lived in a huge Algerian mansion. All the friends, friends of friends, students, new visitors from abroad as well as regular visitors to the house, were invited as a matter of course. All came, brought something or took part in the organization of the evening, trying to outdo each other in wit, brilliancy, talent, or cakes. There was singing, playing, reading aloud, eating, chattering, gossiping. The place was full of flowers and sweets. People would walk on each other’s feet. Surprisingly enough, there was room for every one. More surprisingly still, she paid attention to every one and no one felt frustrated or left out.
Music always was an important part of her life. In her family, everybody would play an instrument, sing and dance. She considered singing as the most potent tool to harmonize body and soul and she would send her students to a voice teacher. In order to help us control shyness and fears, she asked us to sing in public at her receptions, to read poems aloud or to give short lectures on different subjects. I had the privilege once, to sing a song composed by her mother in Judeo-Espanol, other times to sing old French, Italian and English ballads and, at her last birthday, to read aloud part of my translation of her childhood memories. During the last months of her life, she asked us to see her in imagination sing and dance and send her those mental images. She said it helped her overcome weakness and pains.
Colette’s birthday was not the only reception she gave. For many years, she celebrated the Russian New Year. It had been a habit of her mother’s to be with her own mother in Oran on December 31st and to give a party at home in Algiers on the Russian New Year. Colette’s second husband, Arye Muscat, was of Russian origin. She had learnt Russian to communicate with her parents in law instead of Hebrew that she never mastered and kept the habit of throwing a party on the Russian New Year. Until her last years, she would not be contented with buying cakes and savoury appetizers but she would make by herself whether an Algerian or a Russian specialty (she had learnt the latter from her mother in law as well as the language). She felt that cooking and pastry were an expression of love and a spiritual discipline besides representing time-honoured traditions. She herself ate very little and kept a slim figure but insisted in giving us a sweet at the end of a series of visual exercises as a tonic and a comforter. She never parted with someone without throwing behind him or her a "bridge" of sweet-smelling orange-blossom water.
She also attached great importance to clothes. She used to say that clothes show a person’s self image. She didn’t tolerate sloppiness and demanded from her students careful dress and good manners. She used to describe the elegant, handsome clothes her mother and aunts would make and the dresses she, as a prodigy child, would create herself. To wear elegant clothes is to honor and show respect to one’s host as well as to one self as a guest. On the last Saturday evening I saw her, she was wearing a beautiful peacock-blue raw silk scarf that a friend had given her and enjoyed it like a child. To the end, she wanted to be beautiful and, in spite of her age, she succeeded.
Besides the Saturday evenings and the big parties, there were special gatherings before each Jewish festival. She would then give exercises inspired by the coming festival. Before the Jewish New Year, we would come to see the first star. On our own birthday, we would light candles on a miniature merry-go-round where a little angel cut out from brass would blow a trumpet. She loved games. There was a game with stones and another one with numbers that we played on Shavuot where she displayed incredible talent as a medium. Playing and surprising us would satisfy the child in her. She loved children and always kept toys for them when they came to visit...
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I am so grateful to Larry for this site. It is such a joy to open the net and have Colette smile at me. I enjoy writing and sharing my memories of her. I wish more people contributed.
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Posted by Francoise Coriat on Jan 31, 2005
Francoise is a theatre designer and translator. She came to Israel in 1967 and has been living in Jerusalem since 1969. She was born in Gibraltar on her parents' way to England during WWII. She was educated in France (Paris) and has been to England several times. She met Colette in 1970 and followed a number of her seminars. She has a little shop-studio in the center of town where she rents, sells and designs theatre costumes and props as well as bridal dresses. Tel (02) 622-3014, "Artishop", Rechov Ezrat Israel 4 (off Rechov Jaffa 60, near the Jaffa and Strauss-King George junction). She can be reached via francoise@012.net.il
(Posted by Larry Pfeffer)
Jan 31,2005