Family Affair / The Rahamims By Avner Avrahami and Reli Avrahami Nahal Oz Gaza: Right here, opposite us, white, steaming, honking from among a sea of dunes. The news flash speaks of war, but that's in Beit Hanun. Far away. The cast: Danny (52), Siobhan (46), Irem (21), Karin (17), Lian (12). Advertisement Siobhan: An Irish name ("Like 'Joan' in English"); Irem - named after Meir, Danny's brother, who was killed in 1948 ("Everyone is interested in it because of the reversal of letters"); Karin - both a sheaf of wheat and part of a boat; Lian - "In the end I gave in. Okay, so there will be a foreign name" (Danny). The home: 95 square meters, two floors, neighbors on the other side of the wall, blossoming garden in front, large lawn behind. They moved here in 2000 (from the "Kuneitra neighborhood"), adding the reinforced security room this year. On the wall that was created in the front as a result, Siobhan painted a fresco of a window with a cat and Danny added real blinds. Design: On the ground level is a large, well-tended space, full of furniture, pictures, books, potted plants and souvenirs, which connects to a living room, dining area and kitchen in columnar hierarchy. Also on this floor is the master bedroom, Lian's room (the security room), the computer corner and stairs to Karin's room (adorned with trophies). Irem no longer lives at home ("He lives in bachelorville"). Sources: The red armchair in the living room is from the Beitili chain, the table in the dining area is from the Erez industrial zone, on the Gaza border ("There was a carpentry shop there run by a Jew and a Gazan"), the Moroccan mirror is from the southern town of Netivot, and the kitchen was built by Eitan, a friend, "who builds for everyone." We move to the books. The books: On one shelf are Natan Zach, "Moby Dick" and Gil Hovav; on another are the "Shulhan Arukh" (the codification of Jewish law, in Hebrew-English) and a bilingual Bible (Siobhan: "Because of the conversion"). Livelihoods and occupations: Siobhan is sales manager of Uzat, the kibbutz enterprise, which is mostly American-owned and manufactures devices used to open bolts. These are large items, used in the maintenance of oil-drilling rigs, trains and ships ("They can be half a meter around"). She works five days a week, 8 1/2 hours a day, sometimes staying longer, and also makes ties abroad ("I was hired because of my English"). She goes to and from work on a bicycle. Her salary is that of a hired employee ("A community tax is deducted"). Danny's livelihood: Coordinator of field crops irrigation - 8,000 dunams (2,000 acres), some of which has been leased to a contractor, while some is in the hands of the kibbutz (cotton, wheat, potatoes, carrots). He works (in season) seven days a week ("It's not necessary when it rains"), arriving at 7:30 A.M. and getting home at 8:30 P.M., opening and closing the sprinklers from an office computer (or a laptop at home). He could do it, he says, "from America, too." He drives around in an Isuzu van, and notes that the field crops were once an empire with 30 workers, whereas today five Thais produce the same output. Irem's occupation: A company sergeant in the Armored Corps. Received an "outstanding brigade member" citation (in the recent war), he is serving (at the moment) close to home, so he comes by to visit (food and shower). He is planning a backpacking trip (he hasn't yet decided where) and in the meantime is busy managing things in the (army) field. Karin: High-school senior in the education complex at Sapir College, in Sderot. Plays soccer for Hapoel Be'er Sheva woman's team and in the Israeli national girls team, trains three times a week (90 minutes) in the Be'er Sheva stadium, going back and forth by bus (she's reimbursed for the fare). She's a fan of Liverpool and Maccabi Haifa. Lian: A seventh-grader in the junior high at Sapir, who will (maybe) follow in Karin's footsteps. Danny's bio: Born in a Hadera transit camp for new immigrants to parents who arrived from Iraq in 1951. His father was a factory worker for Hadera Paper Mills, his mother was a housewife. Until fifth grade he attended a Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) school ("because you got free meals there"), switching to a secular school in sixth grade, where he tried to close the academic gap (with partial success). He went on to a vocational high school (studying accountancy), dropped out and joined (at age 17) a Nahal paramilitary brigade "core" group in Pardes Hanna and left home. The decision: "We were six kids living in one room and I felt suffocated." His father, he says, took the decision hard at first. After his army service he stayed on the kibbutz, coordinating the poultry division for four years ("I was the youngest coordinator"). He then worked in other kibbutz units (which closed down), studied special education and literature at Seminar Hakibbutzim Teachers College, taught literature in junior high at Sha'ar Hanegev (favorite Israeli writers: Yoel Hoffmann, A.B. Yehoshua, Natan Shaham and Zeruya Shalev), and moved to agricultural pursuits. He met Siobhan in 1979. She was a volunteer on the kibbutz. Siobhan's bio: Born in London in 1960 to Irish parents ("originally O'Brien"). She did not really know her father, as he left the family when she was an infant, after her mother fell ill with tuberculosis and was hospitalized. Abandoned, with siblings, she was found by a neighbor and placed in a Catholic convent in London, where she lived until age 11. Her siblings were sent to a separate boarding school. The convent: "Straight out of Charles Dickens." She says her situation was better than that of the other children, because she had a mother and they were orphans. She remembers the rigid nuns ("We drove them crazy"), the discipline, the cold, the prayers, and the beatings. She has no friends from that period ("Most of them didn't come out of it normal"). She had no hesitations about converting to Judaism later. Bio (cont.): After returning home at the age of 11 (her mother had recovered), she attended high school in London, adored David Bowie and Mick Jagger, enrolled in college, heard about the kibbutz movement in a class there, continued to talk about it in the cafeteria and eventually contacted "Project '67," an organization that sent her to Israel. The landing here: Hard. She was quite taken by surprise at the airport by the people who mobbed the place waiting for incoming flights ("the shouting"). She then went through a great many checkpoints ("To save 7 kilometers we drove through Gaza") and arrived at the kibbutz in the dark. When daylight broke she was surprised at the grass, the flowers and the blue skies. In short order she became part of the work schedule (in the dining room) and also went to the seashore in Sinai ("That was a dream"). The meeting: 1979. Danny was poultry branch coordinator, Siobhan was working in the dining room. He noticed her, she didn't pay any attention to him. For days he was nice to her and nothing happened, until he decided to change tactics and ignore her demonstratively ("I behaved correctly. I took a tray and went"). After a few days she asked him "What's wrong?" and he invited her to his room ("for tea"). The wedding: 1983. Poolside. The whole kibbutz came ("After us everyone started to get married"). But first Siobhan converted. The conversion: 1982. After visiting her home in England and studying Hebrew in an ulpan (intensive course), she enrolled in a conversion course in Kfar Etzion (in the West Bank), where she studied for half a year. The subjects included "purity of the family," "Shulhan Arukh," Jewish history and prayers ("I felt as though Judaism were speaking to me"). The reactions: "My mother, who is a pious Christian, said, 'What does the religion matter, the important thing is the person.'" Danny's parents also adopted her immediately ("I call them Mom and Dad"). She says she ate kubbeh freely. Daily routine: Siobhan and Lian get up first (about 6:15). Lian eats cornflakes, takes the sandwich her mother has made for her and hurries to catch the early school bus. She studies in the first shift. Shifts: Because not all the classrooms have been reinforced to protect the students from Qassam rockets. Daily routine (cont.): Siobhan goes back to sleep and then Danny gets up (6:30) and makes coffee ("He brings me a cup of coffee in bed"). At 7:25 he goes out to the van, and half an hour later she goes out to her bike. Karin is still sleeping, as she is in the second shift. They have lunch separately: Siobhan in the office ("There's a kitchenette"), Danny in the dining room ("NIS 15 a meal, with an NIS 8 reduction for the agriculture branch"), Irem at his base, Lian in the kibbutz dining room, Karin in the school cafeteria. After school Karin will go to Be'er Sheva for soccer practice. Evening: They eat at home, but each of them alone. Only on Fridays is there a common meal ("for the past 100 years already"). The menu includes baked potatoes, and "only Siobhan knows the secret of their preparation" (Danny). They also talk about the weekly Torah portion. Television: Danny is a news junkie ("From 'New Evening'" - at 5:30 P.M. - "until 'The Day that Was'" at 11:30 P.M.). Siobhan likes BBC Prime (gardening, antiques); Karin goes for 5+, the sports channel, and Lian's favorites are MTV and "The Octet," an Israeli series about high-schoolers. Dreams: Siobhan - a roots trip with the family to Ireland; Danny - to engage in literary research ("But that will probably not happen already"); Karin - to be top goal scorer (she had 20-something goals last season); Lian - to be a movie actress; Irem - to study architecture ("not final"). House cleaning: They have a cleaning woman twice a month, a single mother from Russia who rents a place on the kibbutz and gets NIS 30 an hour. Educational policy: "We always set limits, without being afraid of a confrontation with the children." Quarrels and making up: "Danny is a man of peace" (Siobhan). Qassam rockets: Ten in the past year ("But we didn't cancel anything"). Peace: "I am disappointed in the behavior of the Palestinians" (Danny). He had high hopes for the disengagement. In any event, he believes that "only if we are moral will we win." Happiness quotient (scale of 1-10): Danny, Siobhan and Irem - 8; Karin and Lian - 10. "Because of the Qassams, we hardly study" (Lian). The Place Nahal Oz - A kibbutz located opposite the Gaza Strip with about 50 families (after many left in the late 1990s). Founded by the first Nahal settlement group (1951). It was in the fields of the kibbutz that Roi Rotenberg was killed (1956), for whom Moshe Dayan delivered his famous eulogy.

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