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Family Affair / The Cohens Tags: Nitzan, Gush Katif Nitzan The cast: Liat (32), Barak (31), Noam (4.5) and Neveh (2.5), named after the settlement of Neveh Dekalim in Gush Katif ("He was born after the disengagement"). The house: A red-roofed "caravilla" (luxury trailer) with yellow walls, in the southernmost part of the temporary housing project for families expelled from Gush Katif. The houses are uniform, the summer is hot, everything suffers from sunstroke. An awning is stretched above the space between the Cohen house and their neighbors'. Beneath the awning is Gidi. Advertisement Gidi: Gidi is a wooly brown goat with a white cap. Barak brought him from friends (in the settlement of Tapuah); the children are crazy about him. Gidi the kid drinks water from a bucket, but only via the top of a baby bottle, which floats freely inside it. An attraction. People pet him; we go inside. Inside: The trailer (90 square meters) includes a living room, kitchen, four rooms and two bathrooms. The walls are bare (for the most part). This is a waiting period. The Cohens entered in December 2005, after four months in the Israel Defense Forces facility in Ashkelon. Within a year, they hope, they will move to a home of their own in the permanent settlement of Nitzan. Some of the furniture they brought with them is from their home in Neveh Dekalim (140 square meters on an 850 meter lot). They will buy more when the time comes. The furniture: In the living room are two sofas covered in fabric, in front of a stone TV stand. They bought the furniture in the village of Bidiya in the northern West Bank before the intifada (in 1999). In the dining area there is a metal table with a marble surface. The table, designed by Barak, was built by Ibrahim, a Gazan metalworker who worked in the Erez industrial zone. They were friendly. On the wall are framed pictures. Most were bought at the Bilu junction ("We both chose them"). "Everything is temporary," says Liat. They left the bedroom set ("the whole thing") in the house that was demolished ("We saw how the tractor mowed down the closet, the bed and the chests of drawers"). We go for a tour. The tour: A short corridor leads to a children's room, with one bed that opens up ("so they'll live together"). Opposite is a workroom/playroom with a computer and a bookshelf. On the shelves are religious books ("Paths of Purity for the Jewish Woman") as well as secular ones ("Cakes for All Occasions"). Further on is a storage and ironing room; next to it is a bedroom with a double bed and three large pictures from the couple's wedding. Next to the door is a blue policeman's uniform on a hanger. Barak volunteers for the National Traffic Police (three shifts per month). We return to the living room. They say that they got this house by lottery. They like the location, but suffer from the rats ("huge") that have multiplied beneath the floor ("inside the filler material"). Sharing the burden: "With us everything is 50-50," says Barak. "Liat cooks, I eat, Liat cleans, I make a mess, but I earn money and she spends it." Earning money: Barak is the owner of Barak's Spices, where he sells spices, nuts and seeds, and dried fruits, which is located in the settlement inside an air-conditioned semi-trailer container. In the past the container stood in the commercial center of Neveh Dekalim, and business was booming. He pulls up photos from the cell phone, and has pictures from various security incidents ("when we caught terrorists"). Routine: He works five days a week, split shifts; Sundays are free. Sometimes he stays awake at night to receive merchandise. He thinks the pistachios come from Iran ("There's nothing to be done, the Iranian jumbos are the best there are"). He offers the customers unique mixtures. Among other things, "white coffee" - unroasted coffee with ginger, cardamom and cinnamon ("reduces blood pressure"). He claims that his seeds and nuts are the best in the country ("People come from Arad to buy"). He doesn't sell gat leaves. He gets around in a frighteningly high black SUV (GMC Yukon, '95) and often helps people to pull out cars that are stuck. Liat's occupations: Housewife, takes care of the children and helps with the business (twice a week until noon). Once a week (Thursday) she washes the house thoroughly (by flooding it). She wipes the floor with a wet rag daily ("We're on the ground and there are children with a goat"). She does the shopping ("out of principle") only inside the settlement ("in order to help the neighbors make a living"). Children: Noam studies in a nursery school (called Neveh Dekalim) near the house. It belongs to the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council and costs NIS 700 a year, including lunch ("The food comes in large steaming pans"), and she goes back and forth on foot. Neveh attends a council nursery school, NIS 1,600 a year; Barak drives him back and forth ("a one-minute drive"). The kids get lunch there, too. Daily routine: Barak gets up at 5:45 A.M. and attends morning services in the Yemenite synagogue ("There are seven synagogues here"). Liat gets up at 7 A.M. and organizes the children. Barak returns at 7:30 A.M. and drinks coffee ("white"). At 8 A.M. the children go out, Barak with them; he will return at noon for schnitzel or couscous with Liat. Afterward he'll catch a nap until 3:45 P.M. and will return to the store. Supper is at about 7 P.M. By 8:30 P.M. the children are showered and in bed; Liat is in charge. Of the storytelling, too. Television: Liat watches Channel 2 news; Barak abstains ("only the Internet"). Lights out at midnight. Liat's bio: Born in 1976 in Kfar Darom, Gush Katif, the eldest of five brothers and sisters. Her father, a native-born Israeli, came from Moshav Yishi, founded by Yemenites (in the Judean Hills). Until the disengagement he raised vegetables in the hothouses of Netzer Hazani ("lettuce without worms"). Since then he has been unemployed. Her mother, originally from Moshav Tarom (also founded by Yemenites), is a housewife and a reflexologist ("She considers it a mitzvah"). Both belong to the National Religious Party, to Barak's chagrin ("They sold us for a song"). When she was a year old Liat moved with her family to Netzer Hazani, which had just been established, and she recalls her childhood as being enchanted ("We celebrated birthdays in Khan Yunis"). She studied in the Neveh Dekalim elementary school, attended high school in Netivot and spent her time in a mixed environment, also going to nightclubs in Rishon Letzion (Mizrahi ones). At the age of 18 she did National Service in Rehovot (in the Sinai school) and met Barak. Barak's bio: Born in Rehovot in 1977, the second of four boys; his mother is a housewife (of Egyptian descent) and his father is a renovations contractor, born in Israel (but his father came from Yemen to Rehovot in 1925). He went to elementary school in the neighborhood and to an ORT high school ("in the 'Land of Israel' track - I went hiking all day long"). He was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces in 1995. The IDF: He served as a kashrut supervisor and was also in charge of the dining room (at the Kastina base). While serving he found civilian jobs in a variety of fields. Among other things he repaired work tools, was a pizza delivery boy and ran Roni Piloni (a toy store in Rehovot). While still a soldier he managed to acquire an ATV (all-terrain vehicle), a motor scooter and a BMW ("something special"). Two weeks after his discharge he opened the business in Neveh Dekalim. Trip to the Far East: "It's only for those who were combat soldiers, it's the dream of those about to be discharged, they don't stop talking about it during their entire tour of duty. I put myself in a work framework while I was still doing compulsory service." Reserve duty he does in a combat unit ("Let's say there's a war today - I'll be the first to slaughter"), however. He met Liat in Rehovot when she was doing National Service. The meeting: 1996. He was on leave from basic training, she was a teacher-soldier. When she left her aunt's house in the Oshiyot neighborhood for the bus stop, he was just passing by with the BMW ('84, 316). He offered her a lift, she agreed. Three weeks later she saw him walking down the street while she was in the bus. When she called to him from the window he was pleased. They talked in the street (she wasn't allowed to bring boys to the apartment), they married three years later. The wedding: Aperion wedding hall, Kiryat Gat ("a world-class wedding hall that had just opened and went all out to pamper us"). After a honeymoon (special deal, in Santorini), they went to live near her parents in Netzer Hazani and a year later purchased the apartment in Neveh Dekalim (NIS 360,000). Barak, who was also the driver of the settlement's armored ambulance, was a witness to all the events and attacks of the intifada. Children and mortars: "I won't lie: As a mother I had fears," says Liat. "Now I'm relatively calm." Would you go back? "Not now, not any more." After the evacuation: Barak says that he slept for 18 hours straight. Later, he says, "I unburdened myself to a psychologist and felt a sense of release." Compensation: They received NIS 700,000 ("With which you can't buy a single measly apartment in Rehovot"). Within a year they hopefully will be living in the expanded section of Nitzan ("We already have a lot"). Liat's father, from Netzer Hazani, who was one of those who evacuated voluntarily, received nothing. Liat: "He of all people, the good boy, doesn't see any house on the horizon and his money is gradually running out." She says it's all because of a disagreement between local authorities (Hof Ashkelon Regional Council and the Ashkelon municipality). Dreams: "A permanent home and a life among former residents of Neveh Dekalim" (Liat). "An entire house below the ground" (Barak). Gaza: He says the problem should be solved in one way: installing a battery of cannons that will fire automatically ("without any considerations") in response to every Qassam launching. "Within three days," he says, "they won't fire a single bullet." He says that captive soldier Gilad Shalit should be brought back at any price with special commando units. "He's here, not in Iran, but the government has no backbone." Happiness quotient (scale of 1-10): 8 - both of them. The place Nitzan - This community, north of Ashkelon, was founded originally in 1949. In 2005, in the context of the disengagement, 1,000 caravillas were built in the eastern part of it (on 1,400 dunams, or 350 acres), which houses the evacuees from Gush Katif. Bookmark to del.icio.us   The bigger apple Study shows Tel Aviv is more expensive to live in than New York. When bedbugs bite After 40 years' absence, Israel braces for return of the bedbug.   1.   Poor, poor, traumatized settlers 02:20  |  Axel 20/07/08   2.   Braindead 02:43  |  Axel 20/07/08   3.   poor traumatized axel! 09:13  |  ginger 20/07/08   4.   # 3 ginger 11:08  |  Axel 20/07/08

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