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Last update - 00:00 23/03/2007
Family Affair / The Hamamis
By Avner Avrahami and Reli Avrahami
Netanya
The cast: Gilad (25) and Leah (23).
The home: A faculty apartment in the dorms of the boarding school of the ORT vocational schools network in Netanya. It's clean and tidy, with a small living room, two other rooms (for sleeping and work), a dining area, kitchen and bathroom. The apartment is located at the far end of the third floor of a rectangular, red-brick building that is close to a soccer field. The large, straight-lined, Bauhaus-evoking building is home to 50 students and three supervisors (one for each floor). We walk up the stairs. T-shirts are drying on the metal banisters of the long balconies, with soccer shoes also much in evidence.
Soccer: Many of the boys in the boarding school were gathered from around the country within the framework of the soccer school of the Netanya-based Beitar Nes Tubruk and Maccabi clubs ("There is a big rivalry between them"). The others are new immigrants ("within the framework of the Naaleh project," in which youths from the former Soviet Union immigrate to Israel without their parents) and Israeli-born guys and girls, who have their own reasons for attending a boarding school.
Entering: The door opens to a living room/dining area. On the right is a long glass table on sawhorses ("IKEA - it's here, next to us"); on the left a red sofa flush against a gray wall in the center of which is a small, lone landscape picture (Gilad made the design decision). By the sofa is a white leather armchair ("surplus from Beiti-Li"), and on a small table in the center of the room is a potted plant (cyclamens). We head for the library.
The library: Gilad placed wooden shelves on a yellow ladder (the kind used by housepainters), which he brought from the family-run hardware store in the Tambour chain. On the shelves are books both sacred and profane (the latter include works by Kaniuk, Grossman and Sara Angel), along with three bottles of whiskey. We head for the rooms.
The rooms: In the bedroom is a double bed and a make-up stand on which are two knitted skullcaps. In the study, along with the computer-printer, is a T ruler (for technical drawing), accompanied by pliers, pincers and a Black & Decker drill. We peek into the kitchen. The Formica cupboards and the marble workspace remain unchanged from the 1960s (or 1970s). We glance down. The soccer field is brimming with activity.
Livelihoods and occupations: Leah is a student at the College of Judea and Samaria in Ariel, where she is completing a bachelor's degree in behavioral sciences. She also works with the ninth and tenth grades in the boarding school. She attends classes three times a week (until 2:30 P.M.); on the other days she is on duty until 11 P.M. ("Leah!" comes the occasional call from downstairs) - except Wednesdays ("marital relationship day"). As a supervisor she is responsible for 17 students, some of them soccer players, from whom she learned about Sunday sadness (in the event of a loss). "If it was an important game," she says, "the blues can last two to three days."
Gilad's occupations: A third-year architecture student at Tel Aviv University, he has four or five days of classes a week, usually until 6:30 P.M., and on Sundays and Wednesdays ("studio days") he's busy until 10 P.M. He travels back and forth by train, getting to the station by bicycle. In the evenings, at home, he continues his academic commitments by building models.
Means of support: Leah's salary and parental contributions. Where they live now they don't have to pay municipal taxes or water, electricity and Internet expenses.
Being a provider: "I have been working from as far back as I can remember," Leah says. "His turn will come. Another few years and he'll bring in the millions."
Being provided for: "As a man, I have no trouble with it," Gilad says. "Right now, my studies are my work."
Leah's bio: Born in Netanya, 1983, first of two daughters. Her late father was born in a DP camp in Germany after the war ("He died two weeks before our wedding"); her mother is from Tunisia. She attended a national-religious girls' high school. She made the decision to study in the boarding school herself, she says, and in retrospect is very pleased with it. When the time comes, she adds, she will send her daughter to a similar framework, which makes possible "a different type of maturation, filled with experiences." After high school she did national service (in lieu of army service) in Tirat Carmel and Tel Aviv ("We were four girls living in an apartment in Yad Eliahu," a South Tel Aviv neighborhood), then started Ariel College and got married (last year).
Gilad: Born in Netanya, 1982 to a native-born father (the family is originally from Yemen) and a French-born mother, who immigrated to Israel when she was 14. He has five brothers and sisters ("I was the second-born"). He attended a Bnei Akiva movement high-school yeshiva in Netanya, majoring in mathematics and physics in his matriculation, and was drafted into the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) unit of the Nahal paramilitary brigade in 2000. His life changed on the night of the Passover seder in 2002.
The Seder night: His father, Amiram, was the managing director of the Park Hotel in Netanya and his mother, Corinne, was in charge of purchasing for the hotel, which was owned by the family. On that day, Amiram worked from the morning and the whole family was to join him for the seder. Around 7 P.M. Gilad was standing in the hotel entrance, "behind a pillar," when an explosion was heard. "A catastrophe," he recalls. "Everyone in the family started looking for everyone else. Little Netanel was wounded, but not seriously, and suddenly someone found Dad." Amiram Hamami, Gilad's father, was wounded in the head and taken to Laniado Hospital, unconscious. He died two days later ("as Shabbat was ushered in"). Gilad did not see the terrorist and takes no interest in the fate of the attack's planners, who were eventually caught. Since then, he says, "life has taken on proportions." His political outlook did not change, nor did the intensity of his belief in God ("On the contrary: My faith was even strengthened"). He returned to his army unit a month and a half later, and completed his service in 2003, did a preparatory course for architecture, and began his university studies.
The Park today: "Mom still works in the hotel, and Grandpa and Grandma manage it, but everything is different." Life, he says, used to revolve around the Park. "It was our childhood. All us kids worked at the poolside kiosk, as waiters, and we knew the guests and brought friends. Today it's different, but not over. We are continuing."
The meeting: August 2004. Leah, a student on vacation, was working for the summer at a place that sells paper plates and cups near the Sharon Mall in Netanya; Gilad was a counselor in a day camp ("for children who are victims of terrorism") with a girlfriend of hers. Leah was then dating someone, but her heart wasn't in it. One day, while she was in the store, her girlfriend came for a visit. Gilad had given her a lift in his car, and when she saw him standing behind her, she got a feeling, she says, "like in the movies." They started to talk. He told her that he and his siblings had established an association that distributes food to needy people. She offered her services; he said they needed drivers, she brought her aunt's Daihatsu. It didn't generate romance ("That whole time he took no interest in me"). A year later, "by a miracle," their paths crossed. In Bangkok, in the course of a totally uncoordinated trip, which engendered a trek to the north where, she relates, she felt that her opportunity had come and her heart "fluttered." One night she revealed what she felt for him ("I just started up with him"), and they have been together ever since ("But we didn't live together before the wedding").
The wedding: September 3, 2006, 550 guests, a Hasidic band with some Yemenite songs, too, and separation between men and women "in the dancing, but not at the tables." Their wedding song was "Come in Peace," part of a melody that is sung on Shabbat eve.
Head covering: For the wedding Leah knitted Gilad a skullcap that matched his tie ("With stripes; it took me a week and a half"). She also made a head covering for herself. "We of the national-religious persuasion are allowed to expose a smidgen" (8 centimeters).
Daily routine: Leah is up at 6:30 A.M. (on study days), organizes, prays, does not put on makeup, drinks a cup of instant coffee (two sugars), gives Gilad a kiss (he's still asleep) and goes out to catch her ride. Gilad dozes until 8. When he gets up, after washing, he reads Haaretz ("It's interesting to read other opinions") and bikes to the train. At lunchtime they both eat sandwiches; Gilad sometimes eats in the cafeteria.
Evening: Always together, always a hot meal made by Leah ("Yam soup, vegetable pies, lasagna, schnitzels and so forth"). Until 11 - lights out in the boarding school - she attends to the boarders.
Shabbat: It depends. Sometimes they are in the boarding school, and others at their mothers' places, where they sleep over. "Full board" (Gilad).
Going out: Usually to a nearby cafe, to visit friends or to see a play. They have a subscription to the local culture center.
Books: Leah likes to read about trips and outings ("We also go on outings"); Gilad recommends "If This is a Man" by Primo Levi.
Romance: Leah - "Being together"; Gilad - "the Rahaf wadi on a burning-hot day," referring to a canyon in the Judean Desert.
Children: "We won't get to 10, but five, yes, with God's help."
Home: Leah wants to live in a settlement in the northern West Bank ("in a community atmosphere, green surroundings, without a dog"); Gilad prefers metropolitan Tel Aviv ("I'm attached to the urban atmosphere").
Fears: A political move that will lead to the evacuation of settlements. They want peace, they say, "but the problem is that the other side doesn't want it" (Gilad).
Happiness quotient (scale of 1-10): Leah - 10; Gilad - "Pushing 9."
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