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Last update - 00:00 26/04/2007
Family Affair / The Shalfirs
By Avner Avrahami and Reli Avrahami
Ramle
The cast: Gadi (39), Ala (34), Coral (almost 14) and Yarin (9).
The home: They live in the "Little Holland" neighborhood (because of the tiled pavement), in a building with seven tenants ("Below are religious Jews and Christian Arabs, above are Muslim Arabs, and we, a secular family, are in the middle"). The apartment is on the second floor and is 125 square meters, with living room, four other rooms, a kitchen ("As soon as we moved in we decided to close the open space") and a faint smell of house pets.
The house pets: Milky (white cat), Fang (mixed Labrador-German shepherd) and an aquarium. We head for the living room.
The living room: A 42-inch television stands next to a bureau with dolls from around the world and two grandfather clocks ("We bought them at an auction in Eilat"). In the center of the space are two beige leather sofas and a coffee table, bought together with the dining table and the bureau at the Israeli Furniture Center in Rishon Letzion ("It's all Spanish-made"). On to the bedrooms.
The bedrooms: One for the parents (with an adjustable bed made by Hollandia), two for the children (with computers). Plus a protected room (mamad).
The protected room: Serves as a study and contains bookshelves, a desk, two computers and two black orthopedic chairs that face each other - one Gadi's, the other Ala's.
Real estate history: They moved here in 1998, paying the shekel equivalent of $158,000, dragging with them a mortgage from their previous apartment (also in Ramle), which they will finish paying off in about eight years. Their dream is a detached home in a local moshav (cooperative farming village), but they are not optimistic about realizing it ("To live in Nir Zvi you have to win the lottery").
Livelihoods and occupations: Gadi works for the Immigrant Absorption Ministry and is posted at Ben-Gurion International Airport, where he looks after new arrivals (from the former Soviet Union, South America, the United States and Ethiopia), who are currently trickling in at the rate of about 60 a week ("Last year approximately 20,000 arrived"). He awaits them at the end of the disembarkation "sleeve" with a "Welcome" sign, escorts them through passport control, fills out forms for them (e.g., medical insurance), gives them a check (NIS 7,000 for a couple), finds their suitcases (on the carousel) and takes them to a taxi (free, anywhere in the country) or to their relatives out in the reception hall. No, he does not have stories to tell about the development of special relations ("I am only a transit station"), but his name appears on their immigrant ID card. For all time.
The job: A five-day week with shifts (including Fridays and Saturday evenings), to which he travels back and forth by public bus. The salary is no great shakes, he says, but the work definitely provides satisfaction ("People are changing their whole life, and you put them in a taxi and they say: Terrific, we never expected this").
Ala: Works for Israel Aircraft Industries as "support manager for developers in SAP environment" and is in charge of a project to upgrade software "that manages everything (personnel, stock, procurement, assembly line, salaries). If necessary, she stays late ("There is never a situation in which the system stops"). She very much likes the job, traveling back and forth in her private car (1995 Daewoo Super Racer), and hopes that at some point she will get a company car. Her entry into the world of high tech was unusual.
Unusual entry: She started off with political science and international relations (B.A., Tel Aviv Univ.), went on to a master's in business at the College of Management, not getting into computers until 1998 ("I discovered I wasn't afraid of them"). She is also studying engineering at Afeka College (three evenings a week), and in another three years will be an engineer ("It's hard, but we're holding on").
Coral: Eighth-grade student in a school run by an independent, private religious education system ("Only because of the high level"). She is not compelled to pray ("I got an okay from the headmistress"). The tuition is NIS 2,500 a year, the classes are small (15 students, all girls in her case) and there is a long school day that includes a hot midday meal ("The food is nothing special"). Next year she will attend a science high school in Lod ("for top students - there's no need to be modest," says Coral). One day, she says, she will be a brain surgeon.
Yarin: In second grade in the same school, likes arithmetic, wears a head covering in the classroom, prays in the morning. When he's big, he says, he'll be secular.
Gadi's bio: An only child, born 1967 in Czernowitz, Ukraine, as Genady. When he immigrated to Israel with his parents (to Kiryat Yam, outside Haifa) in 1976, he changed his name to Gadi ("I preferred it to Gershon"). His father, now retired, was an electrician (a civilian employee of the army); his mother, also retired, was an accountant at the Tnuva food company. He attended elementary school on Kibbutz Miflasim ("We were a large group of new immigrants and there was a lot of friction and fights") and went on to a vocational high school, graduating as an electrical technician. He was drafted at age 20, served in Northern Command, and after his discharge, in 1990, entered the Absorption Ministry. Ala got him the job. They met that year.
Ala's bio: Born 1972, Czernowitz ("a total coincidence"). Her parents, it turned out, worked in the same plant (leather curing) as Gadi's parents before they immigrated to Israel ("another coincidence"). She arrived in Ramle at the age of seven and went straight into second grade, even though she had never been in first grade ("But I managed"). Her father, now retired, was also a civilian employee of the army ("yet another coincidence"); her mother, a construction engineer, works for the Ramle Municipality. She did a mathematics-science track in high school, and was accepted to the army's officer candidate academic studies program (in political science), but before she was drafted she got married ("The army is missing in my biography").
The meeting: 1990, at Gadi's home. Ala, then 18 and a high-school senior, went with her mother to Kiryat Yam ("She dragged me to meet childhood girlfriends"), and on the street they ran into Raya, Gadi's mother, whom Ala's mother had known from the plant in Czernowitz. The unexpected meeting generated emotions on both sides. Raya insisted that the visitors come to her place for coffee. They accepted the invitation. Ala met Gadi and did not return to Ramle that day ("Five months later we were married").
The wedding: Ron Banquet Hall, Kiryat Eliezer (in Haifa), 450 guests, with a Russian band that livened things up. They relate that people from the place where Gadi's father works by mistake put their checks into a carton that happened to be there and they (the checks) were never seen again.
Bio (cont.): For two years they lived with her parents in Ramle, until moving into a place of their own ("Financially it was convenient, but otherwise no big deal"), from where they moved to their current address.
Daily routine: Coral gets up first (6:30) and goes straight to the computer ("to my blog at Nana," a portal). Ala gets up at 7, Yarin at 7:15, Gadi according to his shift. They don't eat breakfast or drink anything. Gadi has prepared sandwiches the evening before. Ala ("only eyeliner and lipstick") is in her office by 8, and has lunch in the company cafeteria ("It's not high-tech-type food"). Coral and Yarin get a hot meal in school ("together with the blessing over food"), and Gadi eats in the employees' restaurant at the airport or at McDonald's with coupons ("or at a dairy place"). The children get home about 3:30 and occupy themselves. If Gadi is home, he will make them supper; if not, Coral will. Ala gets home at 10:30 P.M., because of her studies, but the children are still up, waiting for her.
Motherhood vs. career: "Everything I am doing today," she says, "will be to their benefit in the future, because it will improve our economic situation." It's all due to Gadi, she adds: "I wouldn't be capable of doing anything if Gadi weren't behind me."
Household burden: Gadi washes the floor and prepares food (which includes baking bread). Ala: "I don't go near anything that has to do with the kitchen." On Friday evenings they usually eat at her parents' place.
Music: Ala says she has "5,000 CDs, at least" (Celine Dion, ABBA, Shlomo Artzi); Gadi likes Army Radio's "Four in the Afternoon" program of Israeli standard fare; as for Coral, "I'm in the hip-hop scene."
Books: "Gadi is the bookworm here." He was the first to read the Harry Potter books (they have the whole series).
Peace: "In our building, the relations between Jews and Arabs are superb," Gadi says, "but I don't see it happening in the country." They voted for Avigdor Lieberman's National Union party in the last elections. Not because of their origins, they say. Their immigration (in the 1970s) integrated well, as opposed to the last wave of immigration (the 1990s), whose members "live in ghettos."
Prisoner exchange: "It's problematic," Ala says, "even though .. I wouldn't release the 'heaviest' ones."
Romance: "Movies in bed after the kids are asleep" (Gadi); "the massage Gadi gives me after a shower" (Ala).
Happiness quotient (scale of 1-10): Gadi and Ala - 10, Yarin - 9, Coral - 8.
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