Cara Nachshon: The grandma with a red nose in her pocket

OCTOBER 10, 2026 21:26Once a week, Cara Nachshon dresses in silly clothing and heads off to volunteer at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.Four years ago, this British-born grandmother from Modi’in completed a six-month Simchat Lev course in which teacher Jeff Gordon taught her how to use performance arts, humor, and playful interaction to relieve fears and aid in the healing process.“I think I’ve always been a clown. It’s always been inside me. But I finally did the course that entitled me to put on a red nose,” she said. “At 58, it was the right time in my life to do it.”Using the nom de plume Miss Cara (read “Mascara” in Hebrew) and wearing red, black, and white – symbolic of life, as these are the colors a newborn differentiates first – she works with adult patients in the wards, emergency room, physiotherapy department, and surgical waiting rooms at Shaare Zedek Medical Center.She has also volunteered at a school for children on the autism spectrum; at Keren Or – The Jerusalem Center for Blind Children; at ADI Jerusalem, a rehabilitative care facility for children and young adults with severe disabilities; and at sheltered housing. Cara Nachshon with a hospitalized soldier. (credit: Courtesy Cara Nachshon)And occasionally she clowns on the fly.“I always have a [red] nose with me because I never know when I’ll be needed. One time I clowned in a mall when I came across a little girl screaming because they’d pierced her ear and she didn’t want the other one done. And then there are grandchildren who fall and get hurt and need to be calmed down. They know that Booba will end up doing a bit of shtick.” Her shtick is informed by listening and observing to assess the situation before choosing which direction to take. She brings a range of accessories to capture attention and engage people through color, touch, sound, or movement. Sometimes the accessories are imaginary and she uses pantomime.One time she fashioned a violin from balloons for a patient who was an orchestral violinist, and the two of them made pretend music together. Another time, Cara telephoned an artistic friend, who was dying of cancer, and guided her by voice in “painting” a picture on an imaginary canvas. A tragic Shabbat in 1986The notion that it is possible “to give a little bit of a lift, even momentarily, in very difficult situations of trauma and stress” germinated in Cara’s mind on a tragic Shabbat back in 1986. That morning, she discovered her second-born child, 10-week-old Catriel, lifeless in his crib.For the remainder of the agonizing hours until sundown, when their son’s body could be removed for burial, Cara and her husband, Tony, were kept company by some close friends.“It takes a lot of guts to walk into a house under those circumstances. But they sat in our living room and made us laugh. I don’t know how I laughed; I don’t remember what they said. Somehow, they made us laugh. What happened there made me think, many years later, that it doesn’t matter what the situation is; you can always find joy in pain, light in darkness – though sometimes it’s quite challenging,” Cara said.She and Tony went on to have four more children. Their oldest, Avital, today is the mother of four. Sons Avinoam and Ze’ev also have four kids each. Daughter Tchiya is the mother of two. The youngest Nachshon child, Aderet (“She’s the cherry on the cake”), was born 12 years after Ze’ev.'We couldn’t wait one more minute'GROWING UP in England, Cara and Tony belonged to the Zionist youth movement Bnei Akiva. They made aliyah in 1983, a year after getting married. “Israel was crying out, ‘Come, come, come!’ and we couldn’t wait one more minute.”They started out at Kibbutz Alumim, moved to the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem a year later, and went on to spend 38 years in Givat Ze’ev, about five kilometers northwest of Jerusalem.“Our children grew up there, and it was a wonderful life. One by one, they left to embark on their own lives.“Four years ago, our children said to us, ‘It’s time for you to move, Mom and Dad,’ so we downsized and moved to Modi’in when our youngest finished school, in August 2023. And we’ve been very happy there. Sometimes your children do know best,” said Cara, who returns to Givat Ze’ev once a week for pottery classes.She believes that making changes at certain stages of life keeps things from getting stale. “That goes for marriage, parenthood, your profession, and where you live, too.”The Hamas-led massacres of October 7 occurred just two months after the big move to the smaller home. On October 8, some of Avital’s family and a friend’s family arrived on their doorstep from Ashkelon. Without enough beds for all nine visitors, Cara reached out to her new community for help.“A beautiful family I had never met gave us their home while they were in America. Avital’s family stayed there for five months, and the children were welcomed in school and kindergarten,” Cara said.Cara emphasized that her “wonderful husband and children are a source of inspiration for me, together with their families.” Her granddaughter Odeya came clowning with her once a month for a year at ADI Jerusalem as a pre-bat mitzvah project. She learned a lot from her Booba.“One of the things Jeff Gordon taught us was to always look for the ‘shakuf,’” the person in the room who feels invisible. “When you look at somebody who’s shakuf, it doesn’t matter what they look like on the outside; what’s going on inside is what needs to be noticed. And with God’s help, always with God’s help, I tend to pick up on it,” Cara said.For a week after Oct. 7, Cara couldn’t bear to do her usual hospital volunteering. “But then I realized I had to. It was a need for me and for the patients. Of course, I was with [wounded] soldiers, and with soldiers who came to visit those soldiers, because they also needed clowning.“Medical clowning is very rewarding – it’s the best profession in the world. I get much more than I give.” ■Cara Nachshon, 64From South End, England,to Kibbutz Alumim, 1983;to Jerusalem, 1984;to Givat Ze’ev, 1985;to Modi’in, 2023Follow us on Google