Family affair / The Menas - Haaretz

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Thu., September 06, 2007 Elul 23, 5767

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Family affair / The Menas

By Avner and Reli Avrahami

Nir Am

Highway No. 34, turn right at Sderot ("Three Qassams fell this morning") and on the main road, in the heat of the day, you reach an open yellow gate. We enter; there's a rural atmosphere. Nir Am is the nearest to Beit Hanun. Yair is waiting on the cropped lawn, and around us everything is blooming.

* The cast: Yair (47), Ruti (42), Tal (15), Yuval (13), Shai (9) and Danny (7)

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* The home: "Family housing," surrounded by greenery, beige stucco, fashionable gray shutters, 140 square meters (after the expansion), with a porch, pergola, garden furniture and a spice garden. The front door opens into a large, lighted, tiled (Sumsum Rehovot) space, which includes a living room, a dining area, a kitchen and a "TV area" with a red couch for sprawling (Villa Maroc, Tel Aviv). Further along is the old, original, renovated house, with four bedrooms (with laminated parquet flooring), a computer corner (belonging to everyone) and a bathroom with light-blue tiles. Something is missing.

* What's missing: A security room. "When we built two years ago, we thought it was about to end. We said: How long can it continue?" (Yair).

* Design: It's all Ruti. Yair heard about couples who separated because of renovations, so he told her "Decide by yourself."

* The decisions: A greenish MDF kitchen (Shmulik, South Tel Aviv), a straw mat from Nazareth, a dining-room table that opens to seat 14 (Kibbutz Mefalsim), a china service ("with the feeling of a family heirloom") and one wall painted lilac ("without a 'concept'"). On the breakfront in the living room there's a (vinyl) Beatles record.

* Sleeping ability: "The children sleep," says Ruti. "The parents not so much." Yair and Tal (the eldest) are considered the cool ones in the family. They don't go anywhere when there's a "Color Red" alert for Qassams. The others crowd together in the laundry room. The night before, at 3 A.M., they say, Shai came into his parents' bed and allowed Ruti to hug him ("It's an opportunity"). She says that he came and sat on her.

* The situation in the kibbutz: In the process of privatization; they eat at home. Breakfast arrives at the table (salad, cheeses, cracked olives and country-style bread from Sderot). It's Friday. They don't know where they'll eat the evening meal. Maybe in Tel Aviv (with Ruti's parents).

* Livelihoods and occupations: Yair, an agronomist, is the business manager of Kibbutz Harel (near Beit Shemesh) and Kibbutz Revivim (in the Negev). He explains that this is a job that was once called "merakez meshek" (kibbutz economic coordinator), but minus the decisions relating to the community. He works six days a week, drives his own Mazda 6, covers a lot of kilometers, is satisfied with his work ("We added an olive grove in Revivim"). He hands over his salary to the kibbutz treasury and receives it after a deduction of the services basket (health, education, landscaping, administration). In addition, he pays property taxes and for electricity. Water is free.

* Ruti's occupations: A graduate of the Seminar Hakibbutzim Teachers College, she is a teacher of movement and dance, who gives enrichment classes in the kindergartens of Kibbutzim Nir Am, Bror Chayil and Saad (in the past in Sderot as well), works three days a week (morning or afternoon), and gets around in her car, a '99 Kaia Carnival, which returned this morning from body work.

* Body work: Ruti arrived at the gate of the kibbutz this week, saw people running, understood that there was an alert, jumped out of the car and it drove independently into a wall.

* The children's preoccupations: Tal will be in 10th grade at the Shaar Hanegev high school, Yuval is starting seventh grade, Shai fourth grade, Danny third grade. They all study at the educational compound adjacent to Sapir Academic College, traveling back and forth on transportation provided by the regional council. Next year, by decision of the council, they will study on Kibbutz Ruhama, outside the range of the Qassams ("There are many people who think that studies must continue in the education compound"). They say that the Qassam that recently destroyed a room at school fell directly on Tal's classroom, but nobody was in it.

* Yair's bio: A native of Yehud, the son of a family of Iraqi descent, his father was a member of Etzel (a right-wing, pre-state paramilitary organization) who arrived on foot from Basra in 1942; his mother (who lives on the kibbutz at present) arrived in 1951 from Baghdad. He studied at the Yehud comprehensive high school, attended the Scouts ("Ofer Nimrodi was my main counselor"), enlisted in the Nahal paramilitary brigade (as part of the Nir Am "core group"), helped to found Netzarim ("It didn't belong to religious people"), was discharged, worked a little in Tel Aviv (at a Lancia agency) and in 1982 returned to the kibbutz, to his friends, to work in the cotton fields. Later he did a bachelor's degree in agriculture in Rehovot, managed the field crops ("the most fun"), was appointed economic manager in 1997, and in 2005 went to do a master's degree in Rehovot at a branch of the New York Polytechnic University. At the same time he began to work managing the kibbutzim Harel and Revivim. He sees his future in administration.

* Ruti's bio: Born in Nir Am, her maternal grandparents, members of the Gordonia movement, founded the kibbutz (in 1943); her father came on aliyah from Argentina. When she was 10 years old she moved with her family to Be'er Sheva, and afterward went to live in Central America, where her father worked in a business based on agricultural products. At the age of 18 she returned to Israel on her own, enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces, served as a "lone" soldier and lived on the kibbutz ("The whole clan is here"). In 1984 she was discharged, she didn't travel to India, but worked with children in grades 4-6 and went to study at Seminar Hakibbutzim. But first came the meeting.

* The meeting: 1983. She was a soldier about to be discharged, he was an ex-Nahal member who returned to the kibbutz. At the time they lived in temporary cement buildings, and one evening he invited her for coffee on the porch ("I had a few round straw armchairs from Gaza"). Thereafter they went out for a year and a half with Stevie Wonder in the background ("I just called to say I love you") and got married.

* The wedding: May 1986, Nir Am, on the big lawn next to the dining room. The entire kibbutz helped. Ruti was in a "classical country dress"; Yair in cream-colored pants, an off-white shirt, a tie ("the first time") and moccasins. They spent their honeymoon at Club Med in Eilat.

* Daily routine: Yair gets up at 6, showers, shaves, drinks (filtered) water, kisses the little ones ("They blink") and at 6:30 leaves the house and heads south (to Revivim) or east (to Harel) or north (to Tel Aviv). He'll drink his first cup of coffee (Turkish, without sugar) in one of the offices. On teaching days Ruti gets up at 6:30, washes, dresses, makes sandwiches, eats oatmeal (in the winter) or granola with yogurt (in the summer), wakes up the children, gives them something for the road and accompanies them to the pick-up area next to the dining room; afterward she returns home, tidies up, but doesn't cook ("There's no cooking during the week").

* Lunch: The children eat at school, Ruti at home, and Yair in the Revivim dining room or in the Menta restaurant in Latrun, or he goes for shawarma or falafel in Tel Aviv (at Gina, on Schocken Street).

* The rest of the day: The boys return at about 4 and go to the children's house; Tal returns later (because she takes dance). Supper will be served at about 7:30 ("On Monday Yair makes shakshuka") and afterward the parents will push the kids in the direction of the shower. By 9 (on school days) everyone is in bed; Tal stays up until 10. At this point Yair is already in the fitness room, where he does half an hour of aerobic exercise and half an hour of body-building. Walking has stopped because of the Qassams.

* Walking: On Rosh Hashanah eve in 2006 a Qassam landed 30 meters from Ruti: "I saw it coming, I got up and continued walking. It may have been an anxiety response, but it wasn't the most nerve-racking moment."

* The most nerve-racking moment: "A month ago at 11 P.M., when Yuval was alone in the house and we were out, a Qassam fell on the neighbors' house and I was sure it was our house."

* Dreams: Ruti: "For it to be quiet. So it will be possible to raise the children." Yair agrees. Tal - to do modern dance; Yuval - to have his own spotted horse; Shai - to be a goalee for the Israeli national team; Dan - to be a player for Hapoel Tel Aviv.

* God: "I talk to him," says Ruti. Yair says that he has developed a belief in fate. He doesn't move when there are alerts. "God," he says, "doesn't give the sense of security of a security room."

* Security: The Menas are in the process of moving to Kibbutz Or Haner, which is out of Qassam range, where they have found an apartment for NIS 2,400 a month. They don't know when they'll return. "We feel that we've had it," they say. The decision was initiated by Ruti: "I didn't want to reach a situation of getting a nervous breakdown." Their families (including their parents) are staying on Nir Am. "It's an uncomfortable feeling," says Yair. Incidentally, were it up to him, he would stay.

* Reactions: "Those who think 'why are you running away,' don't say it to us" (Yair).

* The future: "I have faith that we'll talk to them [the other side]," says Ruti. Yair: "The solution is to flee the country, but my father came from Iraq on foot, so I don't know."

* Happiness quotient (scale of 1-10): Yair - 9; Ruti - 9; Tal - 8; Yuval - 9.5; Shai - 7.

The place

Nir Am - A kibbutz in the northern Negev, adjacent to the border of the Gaza Strip, founded in 1943, population approximately 360, under attack by Qassams for the past six years.

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