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Last update - 00:00 02/11/2006
Family Affair / The Shanis
By Avner and Reli Avrahami
Kfar Tavor
The cast: Ud (42), Dikla (39), Haleli (10), Lia (5).
Dog: "We'll have one by the end of the year."
The home: Red-roofed, beige plaster, 175 square meters on a lot of a quarter of a dunam (1/16 of an acre), sandy yard that is being prepared for grass, electric blinds and a bright ceramic floor. They have been here since mid-August and are renting.
The rent: $600 a month.
The contents: Partly still in cartons. The walls are still white. In the living room are light-colored sofas ("We assembled them ourselves"), on the windowsills are signs of the beginning of "nesting": potted plants, vases, silverware, pottery, porcelain utensils. In the dining area is a heavy table with six matching chairs ("We brought them in a shipping container"); below the staircase (which leads to the second floor) is a wine collection.
The wines: The white wines are from Portugal, the reds from Rioja, Spain.
Spain: They returned in the summer from three years in Spain, where they lived in San Lorenzo de El Escorial ("'Escorial' for short"), near Madrid, because of Ud's work.
Tour: We go up to the rooms. Lia has a Lupita doll, without which no Spanish child goes to sleep. From Haleli's room the hump of Mount Tavor is visible (though slightly blocked by the neighbors' pecan tree). We peek into the master bedroom. Next to the bed is a copy of "The Secret Life of Bees" ("a wonderful book"). With the help of a collapsible ladder we climb higher, to the attic and to a small balcony, from which we see a sun-struck farm landscape - the fields of the Jezreel Valley. We go back down to the well-equipped kitchen and are introduced to the collection of bells arranged high up, close to the ceiling ("We bought every bell in a different Spanish village"). On the table are refreshments in three dishes.
The refreshments: Tortilla Espanola (an omelet with potatoes), pan de tomate (a toasted sandwich with olive oil and crushed tomatoes) and a dish of squares of caso manchego ("the most famous cheese in Spain").
Livelihoods and occupations (after Spain): For the past two and a half months Ud has been the marketing director of a company that purifies sewage by means of biological processes. He works a five-day week, leaving before 6:30 A.M. and getting home after 8 P.M., driving a company car (Mazda 3) to offices in Herzliya (90 minutes away on average), sometimes calling on clients around Israel and elsewhere, selling purification systems to factories, farms and local governments. Water, he says, is the future ("the next high-tech").
Sample price: A purification facility for a town in Romania (10,000 residents) costs 1 million euros.
Dikla's occupation: By profession a special-education teacher, she is currently not working, while exploring possibilities of returning to the Education Ministry. Recently she contemplated continuing her schooling and decided on gender studies and a course in coaching women, along with ceramics and painting. She is also thinking about a home-based business for selling jams, breads, cookies and pickled items.
The girls: Halili, a fifth-grade student in the local school, likes to dance and is learning classical, jazz and flamenco dancing. Lia is in kindergarten. Dikla takes them to school and picks them up.
Dikla's bio: Born in Kibbutz Sha'ar Hagolan in 1967, third generation of the kibbutz founders. She spent her first three years in a bomb shelter ("the War of Attrition"). Her father works in a kibbutz-owned plastics factory, her mother in the accountancy department ("She was also the librarian and the food purchaser"). She is a "graduate" of the kibbutz movement's children's houses, where the youngsters grew up and slept together.
The children's houses: "I had to be very strong to come out of that without mental bruises." She is happy that she gives her children a different experience. She hasn't yet seen the new film "Sweet Mud," which deals with this subject, but plans to.
Bio (cont.): After high school she did a year's service ("delightful") as the member of a "commune" in Jerusalem (run by Hashomer Hatza'ir youth movement), served in the Air Force (where she met Ud), traveled to the East (Thailand, Nepal, Singapore), returned after six months and moved to Tel Aviv, working in a laundry and helping a disabled person. She then went back to the kibbutz, where she worked for a year and then attended Oranim School of Education, in Tivon, where she obtained a degree in special education. She then worked at a school in Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov (Ihud) and organized the 60th anniversary celebrations for Sha'ar Hagolan ("200 people danced and sang"). In the wake of her success, she was asked to coordinate the culture committee of the kibbutz, and within that framework she produced a book of kibbutz recipes across the generations.
Memorable recipe: Shula Shenk's chocolate spread ("Because of it, people couldn't wait for Shabbat"). Ingredients: 120 eggs, 8 kilos of sugar, 1 kilo of cocoa, 30 packs of margarine.
Ud's bio: Born in Kibbutz Hulata, 1964, to native-born parents who are now both retired. His mother is originally from Kibbutz Kfar Hogla, where she worked in the shoe factory; his father, originally from Jerusalem, worked in agriculture and trained dogs all his life. Ud attended elementary school in Hulata, high school in Kibbutz Dafna and says he survived the children's house without traumas. He relates that he always had a dog and that at the age of seven he won a national dog-training contest with Bambi, a poodle-terrier that he received from his parents in a shoe box. He did six years of army service as an intelligence officer in the Air Force and met Dikla.
The meeting: 1986. There was a rumor in the unit that new girls, kibbutzniks, had arrived (Dikla: "We were an attraction"), and all the officers flocked to see them. She was involved in deciphering, as was he ("a bit arrogant"). A mutual friend told her that it was his birthday and he, to mark the event, invited her for a walk along the breakwater in the Tel Aviv Marina. She agreed and it was delightful, they became closer, he gave her a key (to his apartment) and five years later proposed.
The proposal: 1991. They were living in Haifa. He was a student at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology (mechanics); she was at Oranim (education), he was in the reserves. She did not actually wait up for him (because he said there was no chance he would come home). It was a winter evening, 8 P.M., and suddenly he entered with champagne, kneeled and asked, "Wilt thou?" Thrilled, she replied without hesitation, "I have to think about it."
The wedding: 1992, Sha'ar Hagolan, on the lawn by the dining room. Afterward they went to buy electrical appliances and later won a Suzuki Swift (Ud: "We received lottery coupons from the store and half a year later, we got a phone call: 'You won, come and have your picture taken'").
Ud's bio (cont.): Studied marketing at the Carmiel branch of the ORT vocational schools network, graduating summa cum laude, and was appointed manager of the furniture factory of Kibbutz Sha'ar Hagolan ("Until then I made a living as a dog trainer"). In 1995, he moved to another kibbutz plant ("plastic pipes for use in high temperatures") and began marketing its products worldwide - in Spain, too. The kibbutz decided to establish a joint factory with the Spaniards and Ud was sent to implement the project ("I set up a company from scratch"), and thus arrived in Escorial with the family.
Deciding to return: Because of the girls and the parents. ("But our hearts remain in Spain" - Dikla). They are currently kibbutz members but are enjoying "a year of economic independence."
Daily routine: Ud sets the alarm clock for 6 and gets up before it rings, Dikla a bit later. Ud leaves at 6:30 P.M. without eating, but takes with him (in an old camera case) a plastic box containing magadara (rice and lentils), meatballs, vegetable pies and cooked vegetables, prepared by Dikla. She sets out on a half-hour morning walk, returning at 7 to wake the girls. She feeds them cornflakes and a yogurt or pudding ("In Spain it's toast in olive oil and orange juice") and at 7:45 takes them (in a 2000 Renault Megane) to school and kindergarten. She then returns home, continues to unpack, goes for interviews concerning possible studies, cooks, cleans, spends time chatting on her forum (www.matkonim.net - a recipes site, in Hebrew) and picks up the girls. They have lunch together ("each of us something else") while Ud opens his containers in the company kitchenette. After lunch Dikla drives the girls to extra-curricular activities and in the evening, after Ud gets back, they have supper together (salad, eggs and cheese). The girls are in bed at 9.
Television: They are still hooked up to TVE (the Spanish channel), watching "Espana Directo" (more or less, "What's New in Spain") and a Spanish version of "Dancing With Stars."
Music: Dikla likes choral and world music, Ud goes for Chava Alberstein.
Dream: Ud - "To set up a farm to treat children with communication problems with the help of animals"; Dikla - "To do alternative treatments in a place of my own"; Haleli - "To be a dancer, a writer and a dog trainer."
God: Ud says that in Spain belief in a higher power was strengthened in him; Dikla: "I have a dialogue with some sort of power."
Peace: "It has to come" (Dikla); "Only through economic change" (Ud).
To live abroad: "Mentally we are ready to do it."
Quarrels and making up: "Spain provided both of us with all kinds of insights. We solve things by going out and clearing the air while walking."
Happiness quotient (scale of 1-10): 9 (everyone).
The place
Kfar Tavor: A moshav (cooperative farming settlement) in eastern Lower Galilee, population about 2,100, established (as Mes'ha) in 1901 by farmers' sons from settlements founded by Baron Rothschild, with the aid of the JCA (Jewish Colonization Association).
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