Just over a decade ago I made a discovery that not only changed my life, but also the way I viewed my family. I realized that there was such a thing as an ancestral bond.

I had been soul searching, and I manifested Dora Schwarz, my paternal great grandmother (1894 – 1982). Once widely known as the priestess of health, she was a pioneer of vegan, vegetarian, and raw foods almost 100 years ago! It has to be said that there were of course people championing this lifestyle way before my great grandma, but it definitely had not become mainstream and was still viewed as a rather strange way to conduct one’s life.

Dora Schwarz ran a successful sanatorium/spa from the 1930s until the end of the 1960s and wrote a cookbook to aid those trying to change their eating habits and adopt a healthier lifestyle.

Born in Innsbruck, Austria to a Jewish family, Dora (still in her teens) married Walter Schwarz (no relation), owner of the SL Schwarz department store and gallery owner in Salzburg, who showcased the works of up-and-coming artists of the time like Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. In 1917, towards the end of World War I, Dora decided to pursue her dream of becoming a health professional and traveled to the renowned Dr Bircher-benner spa in Zurich, Switzerland to study and qualify in the field of nutrition. The Swiss doctor who pioneered vegetarianism and raw food is now probably best remembered for his popular breakfast dish Bircher Muesli.

After achieving what she set out to do and armed with her qualifications, Dora returned to Austria, but when the stirrings of antisemitism started to rise, Dora left for Palestine in July 1933. Walter stayed behind to run the family businesses. Sadly, he was arrested twice by the Gestapo, and the second time he was taken from Vienna to the SS headquarters in Munich, where he was then murdered. Thankfully Dora managed to bring her three children with her, one of those children being my Grandfather Hugo.

After Dora arrived in Palestine, she decided to search for a place to open her health center and in 1935 she threw her doors open to the community and started to establish her business. It didn’t take long before people were traveling far and wide to receive the care of my great grandma and sample the lifestyle she had started to preach. The sanatorium was frequented by many famous people of the time including the former president of Israel Zalman Shazar, philosopher Hugo Bergmann, as well as many other actors, writers, and artists.

Dora Schwarz was promoting the current self-care movement way ahead of her time; she was completely anti-smoking, pro-exercise, and a big advocate of the power of breath work (or breathing gymnastics as she called it in her spa brochure). Her recipe book revolves around consuming raw fruits and vegetables for optimum health and healing chronic disease, as well as incorporating many vegan and vegetarian recipes too.

My great grandmother had a very strong business acumen for a woman of her time and this was reflected in the success of the sanatorium. She was always busy and fully booked but gave each guest her undivided attention.

In 2012, I decided to quit smoking. I had been a vegetarian for many years but decided to pursue a vegan diet instead. It was while I was doing some research on a plant-based lifestyle and had embarked on a rather in-depth internet sleuthing session that I stumbled across Dora’s cookbook and I was in complete admiration. Shortly after that my husband gifted me an original copy of the book in English (it was also written in German and Hebrew) that he had tracked down in a little antique bookshop in Jerusalem and surprised me with it on my birthday. I could not believe that I was actually holding a copy of my great grandmother’s book, and as I started to flick through the pages it dawned on me just what a trailblazer she really was — a truly progressive woman!

In the book I discovered a recipe for avocado smash, and one for almond milk — things that I thought were ultra modern and hipster inventions were staring me in the face in a book written nearly 100 years ago! My great grandmother’s cookbook has completely amazed and inspired me. It is a book filled to the brim with a wealth of recipes, even incorporating seasonal and weekly menu plans — plus a menu specifically designed to help reverse chronic disease and illnesses common to man through the aid of vegan, vegetarian, and raw foods.

I myself have been a raw food vegan and even a fruitarian over the years. I have spent a lot of time researching veganism and raw food diets originally for the health benefits they had to offer. When I was eating a 100% raw food diet my energy levels went through the roof. Nowadays, I have gravitated to a more varied vegan diet incorporating cooked foods as well as eating an abundance of raw fruits and vegetables. Veganism to me is a lifestyle and I eat this way for the health benefits for sure, but also for my love of animals. I have enjoyed eating this way for over a decade now.

It has been a truly wonderful journey discovering and uncovering the story of my great grandmother and receiving the chance to connect with her via the pages of her book. So much so, it inspired me to write my own book, which explores her pioneering life and historic recipes, as well as including vegan recipes of my own and a family memoir celebrating a wonderfully vibrant but highly dysfunctional Jewish family heritage, all centered around a shared passion for food.