About Edith Wigoda

I was born in 1945 in Costa Rica, a wonderful democratic country where the Tico population lives with the motto of Pura Vida, which is impossible to translate and means “To enjoy life.”

As a Jew, daughter of immigrants, I had the opportunity to grow up among two sets of cultures, one with Jewish traditions, listening to the Yiddish language at home, and the second; in a country where Catholicism was present in every corner of the Country.

Even if Costa Rica was and is a paradise, the adjustments from my grandparents and parents to a new land were not easy. They had brought images of persecution and fear, and it took many years for the paranoia to walk away; on the other hand, Ticos live with a perennial sense of optimism, which changed the lives of the jews for the better.

Still young I left Costa Rica and became an immigrant in the United States. Although this wonderful Country is heaven, I suffered the change because I was thrown from a cozy family environment to a huge world of anonymity where loneliness became my shadow.

As years passed and I had the joy to have children and grandchildren, I started to think that once I was gone, all the anecdotes of my family and friends, their experiences as newcomers, and the way we lived in the forties, fifties until now would be gone. I decided to write short stories about some moments of joy, sadness, and interesting times that my family and friends had lived.

My stories are simply about life, how jews are taught at home, the experiences we had after World War II in a world that does not particularly like us, and the unanswerable question of why.

Besides anecdotes, the stories try to educate readers about Jewish history, commandments, and moral way of life. Although I am not a particularly religious person, I admire the wisdom of our traditions that install togetherness and ethical behaviour. We are taught to take care of others. I wrote hoping that when my children’s grandchildren need to know about their past, they will also learn some of the beliefs that we as Hebrews are taught at home.

For the reader who is not Jewish, the stories are an opportunity to take a glimpse of how Hebrews live and how we are taught at home.