Givat Haviva staff members sharing with their overseas visitors from Toronto and Tennessee
Ronit Bental points to her late mother in a photograph taken in the 1940s in Kibbutz Ma’anit. Haviva Reik is to the left of Ronit’s mother and on the right: Ronit with cousin Tom Tomasov and his son Matthew from Toronto visiting the village of Barta’a where they met with Palestinian businessman Allam Abu Abead.
Ronit Bental is secretary to Givat Haviva Executive Director Haggai Halevi. She was born and raised at Givat Haviva’s neighboring community of Kibbutz Ma’anit where she still resides with her family today.
In the corridor outside Ronit’s office at Givat Haviva is an exhibition of photographs telling the story of Haviva Reik, after whom Givat Haviva, and Ronit’s place of work, is named. Haviva Reik was a member of Kibbutz Ma’anit when she volunteered for the paratroop unit of the British Royal Airforce and sent behind enemy lines in her country of birth. It became not only the country where she was born but also where after joining up with local Resistance fighters she died - captured and executed by the Nazis in 1944.
Ronit Bental’s mother Miriam and Haviva Reik were childhood friends in Slovakia where they attended the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement together and eventually both made aliya and became members of Ma’anit. Among the many black and white and sepia photographs adorning the corridor walls is one of Ronit’s late mother standing next to Haviva Reik. Ronit has an uncanny resemblance to mother Miriam as the above photograph shows.
Recently Ronit was visited by her cousin Tom Tomasov and his 12-year-old son Matthew from Toronto, Canada. Tom was born and raised in Slovakia until the age of 17 when he moved to Canada. During his stay at Ma’anit and Ronit wanting to share with him a better knowledge of the region, Tom, Matthew and Ronit joined an International Department guide for an in-depth tour of the Wadi Ara-Dotan Valley area.
In the village of Barta’a they met with local Palestinian businessman Allam Abu Abead who joined the family for lunch and took a drive along the security fence to the Barta’a-Reichan checkpoint a kilometer and a half behind the Palestinian Authority Area B portion of East Barta’a.
Tom and Matthew in West Barta’a with East Barta’a in the background and right: Matthew with International Department’s Lydia Aisenberg at the checkpoint
Upon return to Toronto, Tom emailed:
“Thanks again for a great tour. I certainly hope we can do it again sometime in the near future.
My understanding of the issues is different, but your take on it makes me think differently.
Thanks again and regards to everybody.
Tom.”
AND FROM TENNESSEE – the brother and parents of Jodi Canaan, Givat Haviva Director of Development
Greg, Ellen and Lennie Feldheim, the brother and parents of Jodi Cnaan, Director of Development at Givat Haviva
When Greg Feldheim, a pilot based in San Diego, and parents Ellen and Lennie, recently came to Israel to celebrate the bar mitzvah of sister/daughter Jodi’s son Jordan, they did not know that Jodi – the Director of Development at Givat Haviva – had arranged for them to not only visit the campus where she has worked for many years, but also tour the area with a lecturer/guide from the International Department.
“My father has always been really interested in events here in Israel and the Middle East and so I knew it would be something he would want to do and my mother and brother would tag along, but they all got really in to it and were really appreciative that the opportunity arose to do something like that,” said Jodi.
The Feldheim’s visited Harish, the village of Barta’a and the checkpoint in the Dotan Valley, called in to the goat farm by the Jewish settlement of Reichan in the mountains above and also viewed the Jezreel Valley from the area of the security fence running close to the Salem checkpoint a few kilometers from the Megiddo Junction.
Lennie & Ellen at the Reichan goat farm cheese outlet
“I thought I knew quite a bit about what goes on in this part of the world but now I am really confused,” said Lennie.
So are we Lennie … and we live here!
JULY, 2010
Photos & text: Lydia Aisenberg
