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The Erez-Slotts family.
 (Reli Avrahami)
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Family Affair / The Erez-Slotts
By Avner and Reli Avrahami
Tags: israel news, family affair

Kibbutz Ketura

An hour from Eilat: It doesn't have to be summer for it to be hot in Ketura, but now it's midday, too. The yellow iron gate slides along its track, the asphalt is boiling, next to the internal access road is a field filled with fantastical transparent pipes.

What is it?: The facility for growing haematococcus, a single-celled algae from which astaxanthin is extracted - a food supplement that fights aging ("so it's believed") and provides a livelihood.
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The cast: Yam (50), Bill (50), Yahav (19), Idan (17) and Hedy (12).

Yam: Until recently, Miriam. As her 50th birthday approached she decided to change her name to something more current ("It was time to leave behind the grandma name").

The home: One floor, yellowish, 80 square meters, in the neighborhood called Martef Bet (Cellar 2), because it's at the foot of a hill.

We enter: Behind a double door is a living room with the Edom Mountains through the window and walls in two colors: turquoise and "apricot orange." Yam decided on the distinctive color scheme and everyone laughed. Yam: "Everyone in Ketura chose white, it's supposed to give an impression of more space, but when we built our addition I said: 'Who are we kidding?' I decided that we would go for colors." Adjacent is an office corner, with a computer and a bookcase packed with books sacred and secular, dictionaries, lexicons and encyclopedias. On the wall is a quilt ("Popcorn") that was made by Yam's grandmother Sarah in Kansas City. Beyond that is a small kitchen that can be called (without giving offense) a kitchenette, as it produces a "real" meal only once a week - on Saturday evening, after Shabbat. The rest of the week the family, like most Ketura members, eats in the dining hall.

Dining hall: They haven't heard about privatization here ("We don't swipe magnetic cards"). On to the bedrooms.

The bedrooms: Bill and Yam's room has a futon sofa that is opened at night and closed again in the morning so everyone can watch television. Idan's room features stickers ("No education = No future," "Yes to a peace agreement") and books (Eshkol Nevo's "Bed and Breakfast"). Next door is Hedy's room, with two beds ("sometimes a friend sleeps over") next to a table with cosmetics. Yahav, the eldest, has moved out; she has a room in the kibbutz "singles section." We return to the living room, with its sagging, reddish corduroy sofa and well-worn beige armchair. Yam serves frozen grapes and dates ("an American invention"). Before our talk we have a peek at the back porch and see dozens of plastic bottles. Yam collects water from the air conditioner, to wash her hair in (no minerals), and as drinking water for Luke.

Luke: An 11-year-old Labrador retriever, a guide dog who was adopted by the family upon his retirement.

Livelihoods and occupations: Bill is a dairy farmer, tour guide, coordinator of the kibbutz absorption committee, conductor of the kibbutz choir and a prayer leader (shaliah tzibur) in the synagogue on holidays (Nusach Ashkenaz). "Being a kibbutznik is my career," he says.

Tour guide: For one week a month he rents a car (an official tour guide van, with the grape-cluster logo) and guides tourists (usually Americans) in Israeli geography, history, archaeology and flora and fauna.

Dairy farmer: On other days he rises at dawn and cycles to the cowshed ("40 seconds") for milking, feeding, medical supervision and whatever else is needed. Ketura's cowshed, he says, gets a merit certificate every year for the high quality of its milk.

Kibbutz choir: Twelve members, with a repertoire that includes Jewish classics such as "Lecha Dodi." Bill is a music autodidact ("and I also play guitar, piano and accordion, all very badly").

Yam: Hebrew-to-English translator "and that's all." Considered a kibbutz industry ("Miriam Erez Translations"), she works out of a converted bomb shelter ("with an air conditioner"), for academics and businesspeople. Also self-taught, she has been in the profession for 11 years, working a six-day week (9-4), getting to the shelter by bike ("two minutes") and is very satisfied.

Yahav: Sorts dates (from 8 to 4) picked by Thais, currently in an interim period after a year of national service working at a therapeutic boarding school in Havatzelet Hasharon, in the center of the country. At the end of the month she begins army service, as a psychometric examiner. Between then and now she is planning a trip to Barcelona with Tal, her boyfriend, from Kibbutz Samar ("20 minutes to the south"). In the more distant future she wants to study design at Shenkar School of Engineering and Design. Yahav, says Yam, is a girl's name in the classic Hebrew children's book "Tiras Ham" ("Hot Corn").

Idan: A senior in the high school near Kibbutz Yotvata (five units - the highest level in the matriculation exams - in mathematics and psychology), senior group leader in the Noam traditional-religious youth movement ("training course instructor, an honor"), and engaged in coexistence.

Coexistence: Takes part in Jewish-Arab meetings and is studying medicine in mixed-youth seminars funded by the Medinol medical device company. Next year she will probably do a pre-army year of national service.

Hedy: In seventh grade, recently began doing artistic gymnastics ("only with the hoop, for now"), belongs to Noam ("fun with religion"), eats lunch in the dining hall with her group ("Papaya"), regrets having missed the era of the communal children's houses. Named for Aunt Hattie, in America.

Yam's bio: Born in 1959 in Kansas City to a Conservative Jewish family. Her father, now a retired building contractor, immigrated to America in 1929 from Hungary; her mother, a communications clinician, is American-born. Yam recalls a happy suburban childhood, went to public school, visited Israel, majored in English literature at the University of Missouri, always knew she would immigrate to Israel. After college she did, and came to Ketura alone ("the kibbutz gave me security"), served in the Nahal paramilitary brigade and met Bill.

Bill: Born in 1959 to American-born parents ("much Judaism, little synagogue"), was raised in a Washington, D.C. suburb. He belonged to Young Judea ("a youth movement that established one kibbutz - Ketura") and spent a year in Israel. Majored in "psychology and partying" at Cornell University, and in 1981, after earning a degree to please his parents, immigrated to Israel and came to Ketura, where some of his friends had preceded him. Did military service at age 23 in the Nahal Brigade as an accordionist and organizer of community singing. The Nahal soldiers responded enthusiastically to his accent, he recalls ("in late 1983 I was a hit").

The meeting: "It didn't really happen" - Yam. Bill: "There were very few people on the kibbutz, all of them young, and for a long time we were friends." The shift to romance? "With the kiss." There was nowhere to go on dates, Bill says, and the right question is: "When did we start staying in the room alone?" They married two years later, not before Tuesday-night movies in the dining hall.

The wedding: February 11, 1986, on the lawn at Ketura, with a rabbi from Eilat and Grandma Sarah's popcorn quilt for the chuppah. The parents came from America, Yam wore a dress from Israeli handicrafts designer Maskit, bought in Jerusalem. Bill's skullcap, decorated with hearts, was crocheted by Yam, their friends put on a "Fiddler on the Roof"-style operetta, and everyone ate broccoli quiche.

Daily routine: Bill rises at 3:15 (sometimes at 5), has a cup of coffee, checks e-mail and does the morning milking. Yam, Idan and Hedy get up between 6:30 and 7. Yam dresses, collects water from the air conditioner, washes and takes Luke out (10 minutes). She then heads for the dining hall, where Idan and Hedy have already visited; Idan makes herself special sandwiches ("Idan's sandwich") with tuna or egg-and-vegetable salad. Lunch is also eaten in the dining hall, in accordance with their various schedules. They disagree on the quality of the food.

Disagree: Idan - "mediocre"; Yam and Hedy - "good"; Bill - "excellent"; Yahav - "excellent, but better at Samar." In any event, dinner is from 6 and 7:30 (in the dining hall), after which they take washing to the laundry ("We're number 26"), not before Bill completes an exhausting bike ride to Mount Ayit and back.

Evening: Hedy watches Israeli shows "Survival" and "The Block" with friends from Papaya, Yam goes for "Gilmore Girls" (she admires Lorelai), Idan does homework or is in the "art room," Bill attends a meeting of the absorption committee ("We are barely taking on new members"), Yahav visits Tal, on Samar.

Romance: "Sun Bay - the beach closest to Aqaba" - Yahav.

Dreams: Yam - "Peace and a train to Eilat"; Bill - "For the children to be as happy as I"; Yahav - "To go to New York Fashion Week as a designer"; Idan - "To be involved with human rights"; Hedy - "a floor gymnast."

Resolution of the conflict: "A country of all its citizens" - Yam; "Two states for two peoples" - everyone else. Peace? "In another thousand years." Idan: "Jews and Arabs don't know one other, there is a lot of ignorance and racism." Bill: "If all the settlements moved to the Arava we would have insane prosperity."

The Arava Desert: "We never felt isolated or bored" - Idan.

Happiness quotient (scale of 1-10): Yahav - 9; Bill - 9.8; Idan - 8; Hedy - 10; Yam - 9.5.
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