A British man and his sister have met for the first time in 59 years in an emotional reunion after they were separated shortly after his birth.
Susan Masrua who now lives in Israel after she was separated from her brother in England shortly after his birth met him for the first time since then this week after he flew to Israel to see her.
But they were reunited thanks to social media after decades of searching for one another.
Susan, now aged 60, was born in England like her younger brother and two other sisters and spent a lot of her early years in foster care where she attended boarding school before finally being handed over to an adoptive family when she was a teenager.
In the 1980s, she moved to Israel where she got a job working as a nanny and met the man she was to later marry, Abed Masrua, and she then settled down in the country in Tayibe.
In the reunion which was filmed by local media she said: “I tried looking for them for so many years, it was very hard being so far away from all of them.”
A few months ago she noticed by chance a posting on a page dedicated to the boarding school that she used to attend by one of her previous friends.
She said: “My son told me to try to contact her, said I had nothing to lose.”
However the old classmates memory was not so good and was unable to help, but offered to check with her husband who was also at the school.
She said that surprisingly when he saw her picture, he had “immediately recognise” her, and also told her that she knew about her brother and sisters.
The pair were able to then connect Susan with her brother Andy, 58, who said he had trouble really believing he had found his long lost sister.
She said: “He kept asking me questions, and when he saw I had answers to everything he asked, he burst into tears.”
Her two sisters are also still alive, and she is hoping to meet them soon.
But the initial reunion was between Susan and Andy after he flew to Ben-Gurion Airport.
She said: “I never thought I’d get to meet my brother, I’m so excited, it’s hard to put it into words, all I want now is to spend my remaining years with my siblings.”
And he admitted he spent years looking for his sister, and often asked about it during his life and said that despite the fact that they never met, he had always known of her and she had always had a special place in his heart.
Susan’s husband Abed said it was an amazing thing that she had finally found her family.
He told Israeli news organisation ynetnews: “I helped my wife look for her siblings all these years, this is a day I will never forget.
“She always talked about her them and how much she missed them, I’m so thankful she finally found them.”
It was not revealed why Susan was put up for adoption and raised by foster family.
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Story By: Michael Leidig, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
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