Lea Spector Kadish Hellner was born 13 January, 1926, in San Francisco, CA, to Anya Friedman Spector and Itzik Spector. She studied from the age of 4 at the Music Conservatory in San Francisco, piano. Her family moved to Oakland She had one older brother, Albert Avraham Spector. She came to Israel in 1949 to Kibutz Sasa in the north of Israel and married Amram Kadish, returned to the US and had a son, then divorced and she returned to Israel in 1953 when her son was 3 years old and her parents came a few years later as well. She moved to Kibutz Gevat. She met Moshe Hellner in 1957 at a party in Tel Aviv and they got married and moved to Jerusalem and two daughters were born in 1958 and 1959. She taught music and rhythm in an elementary school. She had an art workshop for disadvantaged children in her home. They lived in the middle of Jerusalem and Moshe renovated the house in the middle of Independance park that had been a donkey stable and a turkish women’s prison.
For many years she was a “dream catcher” working on people’s dreams. She was a wonderful mother. She was a writer and painter, throughout her life. She wrote diaries of her life and her work with other people. She loved Judaism and Israel. She was very colorful and the house was always full with people living and visiting there. She was a free spirited person.
The last 20 years of her life what she loved was reading about Kabalah and Chasidism, stories of the bible, it fed her soul and kept her grounded. She always made people feel at home, very curious about other people, a vibrant and warm household ;”always add another glass of water to the soup”. She died of ovarian cancer in 2011.
If you have any letters either from or to Lea that you would be willing to share, please let me know.