Malca Flasterstein was born in November 1951 in Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Israel. She was the third of four children. She lived in an apartment in a Holon apartment with her siblings and both her parents.

Her childhood memories include playing games with the neighborhood children, helping her mother with chores, celebrating Hanukkah and running to school with her siblings so they were not marked tardy.

For Jews of Middle-Eastern and African descent, life was not as easy living in Israel. Flasterstein said Ashkenazic Jews (Jewish people from eastern Europe and Russia) were favored socially and politically. Despite these rifts, Flasterstein married an Ashkenazic Jew named Bernardo.

They dated while in college, and the two were married in 1976. Flasterstein spent more than a decade in her teaching career while Bernardo was in medical school. Later, they raised one daughter and two sons.

The family came to the United States when Bernardo was accepted into a residency program in Cleveland. They later moved to Springfield after he got a job at Mercy Hospital.

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Music is Bach Cello Suite no. 3 by Colin Carr from the Free Music Archive.

Episodes are edited, recorded, mixed, and published by Diana Dudenhoeffer.