Laura Ben-David had more careers than most people—professional photographer, social media expert, writer, makeup artist, preschool teacher and nurse, to name just a few.
She also had more close friends than anyone I know, with tributes to her pouring in from around the world after her death in Jerusalem on July 17 from ovarian cancer at age 56.
Full disclosure: Laura was a close friend and part of a small group of English-speaking American immigrants in Jerusalem called “Ladies Who Drink.” We get together almost every Shabbat morning for kiddush, which involves breakfast, wine and whisky. Even when she was very ill and in a wheelchair, Laura would make the effort to come.
“As I set the table for our weekly ‘Ladies Who Drink’ kiddush, I felt an incredible emptiness where she should have been,” said close friend Laura Cornfield, director of MediaCentral. “She always sat to my right, the right-hand lady for me and anyone who needed her.
“She was pure joy—whether at Thanksgiving dinners, her bachelorette party, her engagement party, birthday celebrations, or any time you sat down with her. It was always a party. There was always a picture to capture the moment, but no photo could ever truly capture the immense happiness she brought to every place she was.”
Laura met and married Ray Barishansky just over two years ago. For those of us who have been married a long time, following Laura and Ray’s love story was inspiring. Although he lived in the United States, they met online during COVID-19 after both of their fathers had passed away from the disease. They spoke for hours every day before they even met in person.
Laura, a mother of six and a grandmother of nine, told Ray right from the start that she would not leave Israel, and he agreed to move to the Holy Land, upending his life for “the love of his life.”
Laura made aliyah on a Nefesh B’Nefesh flight in 2002 from Boca Raton, Florida, with four young children, to the community of Neve Daniel but later moved to Jerusalem. She had two more children in Israel and in 2007, published a book titled Moving Up: An Aliyah Journal, a humorous account of her family’s immigration.
Here is how she described shopping at the Malcha Mall, once the largest mall in the Middle East. “Because this mall is in Jerusalem, there happens to be a large percentage of obviously observant Jews. It’s really a hard thing for me to explain; it was almost like being at a synagogue or a special rally for a Jewish cause, except that we are all simply ‘at the mall.’ The point here is that I became so emotional over the whole thing that I started to cry. It was just one more reminder of where I am and why I am here. Because this land is MINE.”
Laura grew up in Monsey, N.Y. and attended the Yeshiva of Spring Valley. “She was really creative in her expression of her Jewishness, and it was constantly evolving for her,” said Hindy Weinger, who grew up with Laura and also made aliyah. “She went beyond the definitions of what it’s like to be a Jewish woman. She had creativity and a sense of adventure and was always defining her own path. But she was always passionate about being a Jewish woman.”
That passion was evident in Laura Ben-David’s Jewish Life Photo Bank, a project of Chochmat Nashim, an Israeli-based organization that promotes women’s rights in the Orthodox community. The photo bank contains hundreds of images of women from around the Jewish world, many taken by Laura.
One of her photographs was published by JNS a week before her death. “The elimination of women’s images in the Orthodox world has real-life consequences,” the Photo Bank’s website states. “It damages women’s financial, religious and health rights. It leaves our girls without visuals of role models and promotes an unhealthy, sexualized view of women.”
Laura also worked for Shavei Israel, which helps people with Jewish ancestry in Latin America, India and Africa connect with their Jewish roots, convert and often move to Israel.
She started writing and photographing as a way of sharing her aliyah story. “I’m an Israel advocate and that is a very big part of what motivates my work,” she told Eve Harow on a recent podcast called “Rejuvenation: Somewhere Under that Rainbow” on the Land of Israel Network.
“I love to show Israel to the world and that’s actually how I started writing. When I first made aliyah, right away I started writing. I was never a writer until I stepped off the plane and then all of a sudden, I was like, ‘I need to share all of this with all of the people who didn’t just do this.’ I started to write and I wanted to do everything I could to show what this amazing experience of life in Israel was for me and get it out there.”
Laura loved photography and would clamber, climb and contort herself to get the right shots. A few months ago, a group of friends surprised her with a curated exhibit of her photos, now permanently on exhibit at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center, where she received treatment. Speaking on the podcast, she said she had been overwhelmed with gratitude to have an exhibition of her life’s work.
“This is something I always wanted to do but wasn’t able to do before,” she said. “I am suffering from cancer and my friends have helped beyond all expectations, but this was something beyond, beyond. They decided to do something that would really lift my spirits. It’s still beyond my comprehension that they went all out and did this for me.”
Laura had a smile that could light up a room and she loved adventure.
“Laura Ben-David was light. Her smile could brighten a room, even until the very end,” said her close friend, Maayan Hoffman. “She had a quiet but vibrant presence and carried herself with such grace, never complaining, even as her illness changed her body. She loved a good gin and tonic, a glass of wine and trying new foods. And she always knew just the right thing to say—whether it was ‘I love you,’ ‘You can do it,’ or a quiet word of support behind the scenes. Knowing I’d see her at least once a week brought me so much joy. My life will be different without her. I will miss her deeply.”
All her friends agreed that Ben-David lived life to the very fullest. Robin Sirkin traveled to Abu Dhabi with her a few years ago. “Laura had a unique way of infusing every day with joy and adventure,” she said. “Once she had her morning coffee (and defrosted from her not-so-morning-person mode), it was go-time—whether we were exploring opulent palaces, riding camels across the desert, or holding on for dear life during a heart-pounding jeep ride across the dunes.
“She was never far from her camera, capturing each moment with such passion and precision. The photos she took on that trip remain some of my most cherished memories, not just because they freeze moments in time, but because they are filled with the essence of who Laura was—her spirit, her laughter, her love of life.”
