Main content

A kidnap, a betrayal, and a letter that tore open the past

Alegra Mizrahi’s earliest childhood memory is being abducted. At 40, she comes to understand what happened.

Alegra Mizrahi’s parents split up soon after she was born in 1930s Palestine, which was then under British rule. Alegra’s earliest memory is being snatched from her grandmother’s garden in Jerusalem when she was three years old. After some months she was reunited with her mother who remarried and settled in England. Here Alegra was told never to tell anyone she was Jewish or even think about her absent father.

She never got the feeling she truly belonged. Then a chain of events on her 40 birthday took Alegra back to her homeland and to a part of her family, and a love, she had thought entirely lost. She has written a memoir called Searching for Alegra.

Presented by Asya Fouks
Produced by Sarah Kendal

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707

(Photo: Alegra Mizrahi. Credit: Courtesy of Alegra Mizrahi)

Available now

41 minutes

Broadcasts

  • Wednesday 12:06GMT
  • Wednesday 18:06GMT
  • Wednesday 23:06GMT
  • Yesterday 03:06GMT

Contact Outlook

Contact Outlook

Info on how we might use your contribution on air

Podcast: Lives Less Ordinary

Podcast: Lives Less Ordinary

Step into someone else’s life and expect the unexpected