Israeli travelers who toured a local market in the UAE about a week ago – came across to their surprise a peddler who offered them to buy a special 200-year-old ‘rug’ that he said came from Yemen.
When the peddler pulled the ‘rug’ out of the pile of rugs offered for sale, the travelers were horrified. It turns out that it was a curtain that was donated at all to a synagogue in Cairo, and somehow found its way to Dubai.
In an interview with Vint, tour guide Haim Cohen said that when the group arrived at the market, the peddler immediately approached her and offered to buy them rugs. “Then he laid out a red curtain in front of us with an inscription embroidered in gold. This curtain was donated to the late Rabbi Maimonides by Miriam Griani.
According to Cohen, the travelers were intrigued about the identity of that Miriam Griani, and decided to track her on social media. A hiker named Aviv Sanfir uploaded a picture of the curtain to a Facebook group of Egyptians, and soon a granddaughter of Griani, who lives in New York, was located. “The grandson said that every time his grandmother gave birth to a son or daughter – they died, and then she took it upon herself to make a curtain, and thanks to the mitzvah she did – within a year she gave birth to a son.”
According to the travelers, who have already returned to Israel, Griani’s grandson intends to return to Dubai to buy back the curtain, which he will probably put in the synagogue where he prays.
