From The Peopling of New York City

Freda Mograby

Freda Mograby was born in Beirut Lebanon in 1965. She left Lebanon in 1978 when she was 13 because of the War of 1975 in Lebanon. It took her family three years to leave because her father had owned many warehouses at the time, so it took him a while to liquidate his assets. The war had started out between the Christians and the Muslims but it seems to be that throughout history, Jews are always targeted. For those three years, her family escaped from town to town. Many of her father’s warehouses were burned or robbed. Freda lost her maternal grandmother to the war and her uncle was wounded and became crippled for life due to the war.

Freda left for America in 1978, at the age of thirteen. Her two older brothers had snuck out of Lebanon beforehand so they had already found an apartment for everyone to live in. One of them had been accused as a sniper so he had to leave Lebanon immediately. The other brother had been kidnapped and he managed to escape, so he too had to leave Lebanon immediately. It was difficult for her father to face poverty in America. However, with the little money he had managed to save, he built up his business. She attended Magen David Yeshiva, where she was able to continue studying Judaism. However, she did not know English so instead of placing her in eighth grade where she belonged, they placed her in first grade. Other children ridiculed her. However, she managed to make it to eighth grade within a year and graduated valedictorian in both eighth and twelfth grade. Life in America had its ups and downs. She was able to live without the fear of being killed for practicing her religion, however her classmates targeted her as a foreigner. This scared her till today.

When she was 18 she met her husband, Danny. He too was an immigrant from Lebanon. However, before coming to America he moved to Israel where he enrolled in the army. They were engaged after four months. Six months later they had four children.