ROSH HA’AYIN, ISRAEL — Atop Malka Levy-Kaiser’s house in old Rosh Ha’ayin, a small city northeast of Petach Tikvah, three flags flutter in the wind: an Israeli, a Canadian, and one from the province of Nova Scotia.

Her living room is virtually a museum of Canadian arts and crafts: pairs of snowshoes and moccasins adorn the walls, along with maps of Canada, photographs and posters depicting proud aboriginal chiefs. A peace pipe dangles from the ceiling. Every shelf is packed with knick-knacks; statuettes of the Bluenose, lighthouses on key chains, dream catchers, wood carvings of grizzly bears and deer.

An upstairs bedroom hosts another treasure-trove of Canadian souvenirs: books and calendars, beautifully beaded aboriginal dresses and a huge case of jewelry – earrings, necklaces and bracelets – all handmade First Nations crafts. In the closet is the pièce de résistance: a full and carefully preserved RCMP uniform.

So, what does a 57-year-old Israeli woman from Rosh Ha’ayin have to do with Canada? For starters, Levy-Kaiser has visited Canada for 11 consecutive years, except for the last three because her husband Maj.-Gen. Edmond (Eddie) Kaiser’s illness and eventual death this past August. “My husband was suffering from cancer and couldn’t make the trip,” says Levy-Kaiser, with a tear. “I will go next year, once the year of my husband’s memorial is up.”

Kaiser, who was 20 years his wife’s senior, introduced her to Canada. A Holocaust survivor, Kaiser came to Israel along with his parents and other relatives after the war. Shortly after their arrival, his family moved to Montreal.

He decided to stay in Israel. Levy-Kaiser says he played a key behind-the-scenes role in establishing the military of the fledgling state, thereafter taking a senior position in the Ministry of Defence. Upon his retirement, Kaiser volunteered with the Israel police, became the head of the Canadian Desk at the Israel section of the International Police Association and pursued a postgraduate degree in history at Tel Aviv University.

His main interest was Canada’s First Nations, specifically the Mi’kmaq and their language. “Eddie felt a deep connection to these people, because he felt that they understood what it meant to be persecuted,” says Levy-Kaiser. “To him, there was a thread that ran through his experience and theirs.”

Another point of similarity, she says, is the great histories of both peoples – Jewish and First Nations alike. “My husband explained that a main difference between us was that we decided to write our history down in the Torah, whereas their history remained an exclusively oral tradition. Their history has been passed down in stories told from generation to generation.”

It is these points of connection, along with the fact that the couple came from a faraway place, that gave them a sort of unique access into the Mi’kmaq world. “They are a very closed culture, but they didn’t consider us a threat,” says Levy-Kaiser, who is herself of Yemenite lineage. Her 18 years as a social worker, helping new immigrants to Israel from Ethiopia acclimatize, may also have come in handy in making the Mi’kmaq comfortable with them.

Her favourite memory of her time with them was the evening a Mi’kmaq chief invited her to participate in a special dance ceremony. At the end, he let her keep the tomahawk she had used in the ceremony. “I felt really honoured,” she says, pointing to the tomahawk on the wall. “I keep it here, where I can see it all the time.”

What began as a series of visits for the purpose of Kaiser’s research quickly became a strong personal friendship. Soon, the Kaisers were coming every year to celebrate Mi’kmaq History Month (on Oct. 1), spending two months of each year in Middleton, N.S., a small town in the Annapolis Valley, halfway between Halifax and Yarmouth. From there, they took trips to visit friends on various reserves in the area, and went on tours of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, and to Montreal, where they visited Kaiser’s family.

“Canada is a beautiful country,” says Levy-Kaiser. “The people are so nice, and we have so many friends there. My favourite place is Nova Scotia. That’s where my heart is.”

“This Christmas, I will be sending 20 packages from Israel to my friends in Nova Scotia,” she says. Over the last three years, she has missed them and has written many letters to stay in touch. In return, she receives packages full of the treasures that adorn the shelves and walls of her Canadian museum/house.