Wednesday, August 12, 2026

The Colombia Earthquake Shook MY Family – and My Faith Guest Post from my wife Sarah Eliana

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My hometown of Pereira suffered the most damage

WAR UPDATE 115

The Colombia Earthquake Shook
My Family – and My Faith

Guest Post from my wife Sarah Eliana

My brother's apartment collapsed around him. He survived and his family survived. As Colombia rebuilds, here's the question the earthquake forced me to ask myself.

On Monday afternoon in Jerusalem, my phone rings. It’s my son Juan calling from Colombia, just as he often does before leaving for work. I answer, expecting an ordinary conversation.

Instead, I hear panic.

“There’s been a terrible earthquake,” he says. “Everything shook for a long time.”

With cellphone lines barely functioning, his voice breaks through in fragments. “Please call the family,” he manages to say before we’re cut off. “Find out if everyone is alive.”

Alive? My hands shake as I dial my brother Carlos in Pereira, the city where I grew up. The call doesn’t go through. I try again. Nothing.

Then a WhatsApp message appears: Carlos and his family have survived. Their fifth-floor apartment has not.

As the roof and walls collapsed around them, Carlos tells me, they crowded into a doorway and hugged one another. Somehow, they made it down five floors and into the street – without a scratch. Their home is a pile of rubble. Yet miraculously, they are alive.

Amidst tears, I call my niece Lina. She tells me that her house, too, has been destroyed. By then, videos are flooding the internet: buildings folded into clouds of dust, streets buried beneath concrete, terrified families searching for one another.

The 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia with devastating force. The death toll climbs into the hundreds. Thousands are injured or missing, many trapped beneath collapsed buildings. Electricity, water and communications fail across large areas.

I sit in Jerusalem, staring at images of streets I know. The distance creates a sense of helplessness. I can only keep dialing, sending messages, praying, and waiting for the next fragment of news.

Jewish law prescribes a blessing upon experiencing an earthquake: “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, whose strength and power fill the world.”1 The blessing does not explain the tragedy. It acknowledges that we are small, life is fragile and the world is charged with a power beyond our control.

Political Upheaval - A Country Changes Direction

Another thought presses upon me: Why has this happened, and why now?

Only three days earlier, Abelardo de la Espriella had been inaugurated as Colombia’s new president. On the first business day of his administration, the earthquake struck.

The timing is impossible to ignore. Jewish tradition states that an earthquake can accompany the ending of one government and the beginning of another.

Colombia was undergoing this transition. Under former president Gustavo Petro, Colombia had severed diplomatic relations with Israel, expelled Israeli diplomats, and moved toward opening an embassy in Ramallah.

The new president, De la Espriella, campaigned on an opposite vision. “Colombia will restore and strengthen its relationship with the State of Israel like never before,” he declared. “Israel can count on Colombia as a loyal friend and steadfast ally.”

After his election victory, De la Espriella pledged to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move Colombia’s embassy to Jerusalem. On the day of the earthquake, he recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

Of course, no one knows the heavenly accounting of any natural disaster. Yet Jewish tradition encourages us to use moments of upheaval to shake something within us.

The Talmud offers haunting imagery of an earthquake: When God sees Jewish suffering among the nations, Divine tears fall into the sea, causing the earth to tremble. This is obviously not a scientific explanation. It’s a spiritual image of a country reexamining its direction, while the earth shook.

A Jewish Echo Beneath the Ruins

As a recent convert to Judaism (a journey I chronicled on Aish.com), the earthquake carries deeply personal resonance. It struck a region populated by many descendants of Bnei Anusim (conversos), Jews forced to convert during the Spanish Inquisition.

Large numbers of Sephardic conversos settled in Colombia’s Paisa region. Across the centuries, some families quietly retained fragments of Jewish memory in surnames, customs and stories whose origins they could no longer explain.

In recent years, small communities of Bnei Anusim have begun returning to full Jewish life. One such community has emerged in my hometown of Pereira. Many of its members are my friends.

One viral video from the earthquake shows a congregation in Pereira reciting “Shema Yisrael” during the morning services, while everything shakes. This was filmed at the home of my friend Devorah, where I’ve spent many Shabbats.

The image moved me: descendants of Jews once forced to whisper their faith, now proclaiming God’s unity aloud, while the earth moves beneath them.

The Shofar That Shakes Us Awake

The Colombia earthquake coincides with the beginning of the Jewish month of Elul, leading to Rosh Hashanah. In synagogues each morning, we sound the shofar.

Maimonides describes its message: Awake from your sleep! Arise from your slumber! Turn inward examine your direction in life.

The shofar is like a controlled earthquake. It shakes souls instead of buildings. It interrupts the familiar rhythm of life and forces the question we spend most of the year avoiding: If everything I take for granted were suddenly stripped away, what would remain?

For my brother’s family, this question is no metaphor. As they stood in the street, shaken to the core, they understood with immense clarity what matters most.

Rosh Hashanah is called the Day of Judgment because all humanity passes before the Creator. Yet judgment is not solely about the past. It is also about possibility. What kind of person will I become in the year ahead? What will I rebuild? Which foundations will anchor the life I want to create?

From Jerusalem, I can already hear the shofar’s call, even before it is blown. Wake up! Do not postpone the life you are meant to live. The ground beneath us is never as permanent as it seems.

(See this article at aish.com here)

IF THIS UPDATE WAS FORWARDED TO YOU. CLICK HERE to ensure you get my next update.

R. Shmuel Veffer and Sarah Eliana

Galilee Green

Cucumber Tomato Onion Salad

Nothing refreshes like a cucumber tomato onion salad on a warm day. Crisp cucumber, juicy tomatoes, and mild onion create the perfect summer side.

Long-time Galilee Green subscriber Diana May from Bodega Bay, CA, shared this recipe with us in the summer of 2024. Louise Workman, GG Member from Olympia, Washington loves this salad too!

Remember to share your recipes with us so we can include them on our website and newsletter!

FULL RECIPE!

Even the Coffee Farm Wasn't Safe

That's Sarah Eliana's brother Carlos at the bottom of the thumbnail above. A few years ago, Carlos, his wife Francia and daughter Laura took us to visit Francia's parents' coffee farm.

It was an incredible experience. The views were breathtaking. And the traditional way they grew coffee was fascinating.

Like all coffee growers, the giant international conglomerates pay almost nothing to the farmers for their beans, and most local growers are struggling to survive.

Carlos and Francia were trying to help her parents find a way to sell direct to consumers to try to keep the farm alive.

All Talents on Deck

With Sarah Eliana's music background and my business and marketing background we decided to make a commercial for them. Sarah Eliana composed a tune in a traditional Colombian style and played the guitar and sang along with Fanny, Francia's mother.

We had a great time putting this together and I think you will love it too.

The day of the earthquake, Francia was supposed to travel to the farm to help out. As you saw from above, Carlos and Francia's apartment and everything in it was destroyed.

When Francia was finally able to get through to her parents, they let her know some of the farm buildings were damaged, but their home was still livable.

May the Almighty bless all those affected with strength and courage to rebuild what was destroyed.

WATCH VIDEO HERE

Watch to the very end to see Francia, Carlos and Laura
with the rest of the family.

Subscriber Photo of the Week

"Bringing Sweet Blessings to Iceland"

This week's photo is ABOUT Ragnar Halldórsson of Reykjavík, Iceland.

Okay, I admit I made the picture above with AI. But I was so excited that we had our first order from Iceland to be delivered directly to Reykjavik, that I had to share this with you.

As I mentioned, Israel Post recently opened their ecopost service (that we use) to about 100 more countries!

That means we have new ways to grow our Galilee Green Family.
I still have no idea how Ragnar found us, but I'm glad he did.

His package of two jars of Raw Citrus Blossom Honey is on its way.

Thank you Ragnar... please take a photo and send it to us when it arrives... and thank you to all of our supporters around the world. You all make a difference.

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