"They lied to me, I went through hell": Grape Chives on the painful parting from the lottery - and the life after | Israel today

For more than three decades, Grape Chives has been the lottery ambassador on the small screen.

The eternal lottery presenter, the woman and the smile, who announced the "extra number" every week and has made quite a few Israelis over the years happier - and richer - more.

Last week, the routine lottery ostensibly became a national event starring Grapes.

This time, alongside the familiar rustle of the slot machine and the dropped balls, the veteran presenter approached her viewers with an exposed and unusual roller coaster of emotions.

Her farewell broadcast, after the Lottery chose to replace her with new presenters (Yarden Harel, Noa Rosin and Ido Greenberg), was moving to tears, with a strangled throat and moist eyes parting grapes from her loyal scouts, finding it difficult to hide the insult that is raging in her soul.

"That's it, dear viewers. Thank you so much to those who have accompanied me so far, it was my home," she told the cameras.

"I say goodbye to him, not very happily. Love you all ... I wish the new facilitators good luck and see you in the next millionaire, just not me."

It opens with the obvious question: Did you watch the first lottery that aired this week without you?

"I did not watch, because I was on the stage of the Habima Theater, in the musical 'Mama Mia'. In the future, if I have time and I will be in front of the TV during a broadcast, I guess I will watch. "On the phone, when she called me after that broadcast. She told me that I was an inspiration for her, and that she loved me. I congratulated her and wished her a lot of success."

Your farewell day on the air was very busy for you.

"It started for me very early in the morning because I recently moved into an apartment and I'm trying to win over the orchestra of repairs and renovations being done here. Usually before the raffle I go to rest, and I knew that day it was very worthwhile for me to rest. But I saw I was not enough.

"I've been flooded with WhatsApp since this morning, and in the afternoon a TV news crew has already arrived for an article being done about me. I am interviewed and say to myself, 'Be professional, let's finish it nicely.'

"When we finished the interview I went to the studio, with the staff accompanying me. I arrived around 21:00. Of course I did not land. I see the party they prepared for me there, and I say to myself, 'God, how do I get through this.'"

On the emotional farewell broadcast, last week.

"For 20 years they did not raise my salary in shekels,"

• • •

A bit of background: Anavi (62), who has been submitting the lottery transmitter for 32 years, was informed a month ago that she is about to be replaced by young submitters.

According to her, she found out about this through the media, when "Israel Today" reporter Eran Suissa turned to ask for her response to the planned exchanges.

After the farewell broadcast, which garnered headlines on all news sites and created a tsunami of comments, Grape posted a post on social media, in which she shared with surfers her hard feelings in the face of what she saw, in her perception, as hurting her by the lottery.

"Hello everyone! In the picture I - who is trying to give one last professional smile live, but the tears are suffocating. A very difficult evening passed over me yesterday ... Even when a change is forced on us, the question is the way it falls on you ... in what Through the other side does it do you? So as you all know, I realized I was not continuing my role as a lottery facilitator in the most disrespectful, even insulting and disparaging way.

"Although the clothes are shiny, the hair and makeup are perfect, but I felt humiliated that at my age I had to suffocate from the tears live. I was very hurt. I did not think I would cry. Already to return home, to hug my family and feel the true love that keeps and envelops me ...

"I woke up in the morning to a huge wave of messages - in private, on social media, a flood of phones !!! It's important for me to say thank you for all this love and your kind and strengthening words !!! It really warms my heart and strengthens me.

"I feel like I'm embarking on a new path. Maybe a better and more challenging path, so I'm finally allowed to be less stately and more exposed, to pick roles and campaigns I always dreamed of doing, to fly long trips abroad that I could not do because of the lottery.

Say out loud 'this is their loss!'

"So say goodbye to her from the lottery, and say hello to the municipality of Anabi! For a life of new beginnings."

An unusual post in its sharpness.

But let's talk first about the "farewell party" they did to you before the last broadcast.

"Prepare a real party, set a table, representatives from the Lottery's advertising department, CEOs came.

I got there as I was passing by, on my way to my room, past a large conference room with glass walls.

I saw a face full of people, and did not link it to me at first.

"It was only when I got closer that I realized it was a party for me, and then I went to do makeup and hair, when I try to take off the tennis ball that suffocates in my throat, to get strong and beautiful and finish it professionally. I have a broadcast, and I do not want to cry and ruin the makeup. For a party.

"I call it a laundered party, because on the one hand I said 'come on chives, let them feel good, they really want to say goodbye to you nicely after they broke up so ugly. Give them a few minutes, because it's me. But I was also angry with myself on the other hand That I'm like that.

"I let them greet me with all the warm words, even though I felt fake and not real, and all I wanted to do was walk away. When they lie to you you know, and they just lied to me and it terribly insulted me. Why?

"I never lied, I did my job faithfully. Do you want to replace? Everything is fine, do it the right way. Derech Eretz preceded the Torah."

I want to make sure again: did you only find out about the replacement from the media?

"Right, and when I came to the raffle the night it was published I asked there if anyone had heard anything about it. Everyone said 'no' to me. They will contact me when they want to terminate my employment.

"For a week no one bothered to call me, and when I referred the journalists who contacted me to the Lottery, they replied 'we do not deal with rumors' - which strengthened my opinion that they are not looking for replacements.

"In those days I turned to the production company 'Circles', which actually produces the lotteries, and said I wanted to know what was happening to me. Everyone was talking to me and asking me, why should I stutter?

"It's an amazing company, really, and after a week I was invited to a meeting at the Lottery. The actual producers and people from the advertising department were sitting there - and they're not looking me in the eye.

"When a person does not look you in the eye, you know he is lying to you. They told me 'first of all we want to apologize', and I said 'no matter what you say, you know what I went through this week was a piece of hell, and I do not deserve all the good I did "It's true that this is a job and that I received a salary, but that's not how I prayed we would finish."

What did they answer?

"They said they apologized and did not audition at all, but just wanted to check out some options. I said - 'This is called auditions!'

Why not come and tell me? Why should I be the most horny woman in town, whose husband cheats on her and everyone knows except her and calls her to ask for her response?

"They told me they were looking for facilitators with a high number of followers on social media. I said 'good and beautiful, what does that mean for me?'

I was told, 'We'll try to integrate you.' I asked, 'Lottery of the month?'

I was told 'something like that'.

"My first instinct was to say no right away, but then I said I would think about it. I tried to figure out what audience they were targeting, because those who fill tickets are not the teens who are on social media. But a person's honorable, and I respect that.

"At the end of the meeting I said 'thank you very much, I am very hurt', and I left. After three days I received both a phone call and an email saying they were unable to include me in the lotteries along with the new facilitators."

How did you feel when you heard that?

"I say to myself, 'Irit, you were right. They lied to you and rightly were offended. But nothing happened, you will be resurrected.'

• • •

52 years of publicity and public appearances have not prepared Anavi for the tsunami that has been taking place in recent days on her mobile phone and social media.

During the interview, she entrusts the cell phone to her husband, in the face of the constant interruptions and ringing.

Grapes is flooded, she says, with reactions from friends, as well as absolute strangers who do not spare her expressions of affection and support.

"It's crazy, some love. My girls ask me to go on Facebook and Instagram, to see the amount of reinforcements and comments, but it's hard for me, I can not yet.

"Just last night I went in and read a bit, and my heart widened. The last lottery, where I cried, I can not see. "I was angry at myself for not being able to."

Although it is the most human.

"True, it's human, but I do not like it. With ten fingers I got where I went. I do not like to complain. But slowly I felt so stupid and miserable, when inside I began to nestle the feeling that I was lied to."

During the affair there were people you thought of as your friends, and found out in retrospect that they lied and betrayed you?

"There are no members in the lottery. People come and do their job. Over the years people and teams have changed, every advertising manager who came tried to show that a new broom sweeps well. I know they tried to replace me, but did surveys and focus groups, and in the end the teams changed - and I stayed."

In lotteries there is no expression of your acting and singing skills, and in the end it is a short and almost technical instruction.

Why was the role so important to you?

"I did not think I would be the lottery facilitator for so many years. At the time I started it as a side job, I did 'Hoppa Hi', children's festivals, Festigal, I played musicals, children's tapes. I moved then, and when I got the offer I said, here is a salary. Not great, but I'll show the bank that there's something permanent and I can get a mortgage.

"It was the starting point, but later I was invited less and less to auditions because I was already terribly identified with the lottery, and it became my main thing, my job. Even when there were anti-lottery articles, when they did not like them, I stood in front and represented them. The lottery - they will tell you grape chives. "

In the musical "Mama Mia!"

On stage.

"Now I'll focus more on theater," Photo: Or Danon

If it was up to you, how long would you continue?

"I knew it would happen at some point, but I did not think that now, as long as I was relevant and identified with them. Over the years, when I was approached for guidelines of all kinds of events, I had to ask for approval from the lottery, and they almost never confirmed me.

"They wanted, for example, me to come to the 'Big Brother' house, for one of the missions, when there was a lottery, and they didn't approve of me. Most of the time they didn't approve of me, I was not allowed to do anything."

I guess over the years your salary there has increased.

Along with your insult from the way of parting, are you now also afraid of the economic loss?

"First of all, know that for 20 years they did not charge me a penny, so you can calculate and figure out for yourself what amounts are involved. On the other hand, there is Corona and there is damage to the theater and fewer plays, so that was the only thing that supported me regularly. That more plays will be repeated and that we will be after this epidemic. "

With your replacements will there be some kind of overlap?

"Nothing, they did not ask me. I do not cry that 'they ate me, drink me', I was offended that they lied to me. I was born on the eve of Yom Kippur, I do not lie, I am afraid to lie, and I expect people not to lie to me."

Do you understand the need for refreshment?

Some will say it is natural after so long.

"Absolutely. It's terribly obvious, and we knew it would happen at one point or another. But like that?"

After all these years, you are asked to ask yourself if you are filling out a lottery.

"I have three appointments, for each of my daughters. I fill out a small form, for luck, but I have never won anything significant.

"When I pay a subscription fee, I feel that I am contributing to the state, because I travel around the country in the theaters, sports halls and community centers that they are building.

But I'm not happy to be their ambassador now, and they do not deserve me to be their ambassador. "

• • •

The lottery hosted by Anavi has been broadcast over the years on Channel One, Channel 10 and later on Network 13. I ask you to remember a particularly memorable lottery, out of the thousands she did, and she smiles.

"You'd be surprised, but I remember all the lotteries I did. In the beginning there was no security in the live broadcast, and there was an audience in the studio, so I would go out and do a standup for him and also sing. Later, when the lotteries were moved to another hall, it diminished.

"I remember, for example, demonstrations by people who broke into the studio in the middle of a broadcast. Once someone, just a citizen, came in and took off the electricity bill, and since then I have asked them to bring security personnel.

"There are two lotteries that I will never forget. The first was quite at first. I came to the studio late, and people in the audience approached me, everyone explained to me why he deserves to win. A pregnant woman told me 'we bought a house, and we really need the first prize.' I told her ‘Your first prize.’ Then someone else said she was a soldier and wanted to fly abroad, and I answered her ‘your second prize’.

"That's how I handed out, with a laugh, and then, in the lottery, what I said really came out, and I was not at all the one who pressed the button. They came to me later from the lottery and said to me humorously: 'You no longer think, imagine or talk about the prizes with the audience ...'

"A second raffle was around Bug 2000, the Millennium Raffle. During the raffle days, because it's a live and dynamic broadcast, I tried not to set anything else, but that evening I had a show where I played in the commercial theater, in Modiin.

"The lotteries were held then at nine o'clock, and at nine-five I could usually get out. I was told that a taxi would be waiting for me to the theater, and that at most they would start the show ten minutes late.

"We got to the lottery, I press the button - and the machine does not work. I apologize to the viewers, say 'technical fault, we will fix it immediately', and my heart starts beating. The taxi is waiting for me outside. I press the button again, and to my delight it works out.

"Next, continue the lottery. And again a glitch: this time the door of the machine suddenly opens - and all the balls are spilled out of it. I hear them falling to the floor.

"My heart is already at 10,000. The hour after ten, I feel suffocated, aided by a ventolin inhaler that someone with asthma next to me gave me. I call the theater and ask for the audience to be released home. It is indeed canceled. "It's a matter of live broadcasting, anything can happen in it."

• • •

She was born to a Ladino-speaking Bulgarian family in Jaffa, the daughter of Mazal, a librarian, and Leon, an IEC employee, who immigrated to Israel in 1948.

Elder sister to Nissim (58), owner of a company that sells packaging products, and Pnina (56), owner of a daycare center.

From a young age she sang at home and at school, and when she was 10 she was accepted into the Tzadikov Choir, alongside Hani Nachmias, her soulmate ever since.

In 1970, she was cast at the first children's song festival, where as a child she performed "Why Like This" alongside Avi Toledano ("We are still in touch here and there, meeting in shows, hugging and kissing, but recently we did not get to talk").

She has served in the Southern Command band, participated in pre-Eurovision contests, children's festivals and musicals ("Guys and Dreams", "Evita"), and starred in television ("Hoppa Hi", "Hit in the Head").

In between she was a member of the band "Magic", released tapes for children, participated in entertainment shows and dubbed movies and series.

She later starred in the show "Sponge in the Big City", alongside Tzipi Shavit and Nachmias ("It was a dizzying success, we also traveled to the US and China"), and then the three put on "Short and to the point" ("Also a great success"). She appears with Nachmias in the Ladino show "Dos Chikitikas", with songs from Dad's house, and in the musical "Mama Mia!" At the Habima National Theater in the role of Rosie - which she shares, you guessed it, with Nachmias.

"With 'Mama Mia!'

"We managed to run 40 plays, and then came the corona that closed the theater. It was really sad because it had amazing echoes. I saw the play in London, and I tell you that our version, which returned to the stage as soon as the world of culture opened, is absolutely better."

By the way, what did your girlfriend Hani say about your whole affair?

"We've been friends since the age of 10, and when it happened she told me 'they don't deserve you.' She knows how many shows we canceled because of the lottery. A show that evening.

"Hani knows how many things I lost because of it, and she tells me the whole loss is theirs. I always say God closes a door and opens a French window, and now she told me the same thing."

• • •

Anavi spent the toughest month of her life on crates.

A week and a half ago, she moved into her new home in Herzliya, her city for 30 years.

"The family grew and dispersed, and the rooms in the previous house, which were empty, became a warehouse. I like to host, so I was looking for a smaller house, but the living spaces would be bigger - and the balcony would also be big."

She lives in the new house with her husband Yoram (65), her partner from the age of 15 ("We got married in 1981"), who until recently was operations and customer service manager at a subsidiary of ICL.

Two have three daughters: Shani (38), a veteran actress and singer at the Cameri Theater;

Adi (35), coordinator of Microsoft's catering system in Israel;

And Roni (26), a teacher who is completing a master's degree in diagnosing learning disabilities.

"The three girls wanted to be actresses, but only I could not dissuade the two. I was not really enthusiastic, and at first I tried to convince her to get off of it, but when I saw the game in the blood I told her to do what she loves. "They gave up, but Shani was ready to deal. If that's what makes my daughter happy, I'm happy too."

Half a year ago, Shani gave Anabi the title that excites her the most today, a grandmother, when she gave birth, with her husband Snir Ezer, to their eldest child, Ari.

What kind of grandmother are you?

"Shani says that sometimes I let her take care of the grandson ... I'm a very involved grandmother, a crazy grandmother. I forced her and her husband to buy an apartment next to me so that it would be closer. They live in Tel Aviv, and I have a hard time parking there, so in a few months they "They will move to Herzliya. For me, we will all live in one building."

With the grandson, Ari.

"The most exciting", photo: from the private album

What else are you doing these days?

"I am now rehearsing for a new entertainment show called 'The Graces', with Hani and Osnat Vishinsky, an empowerment show on the occasion of Women's Day, which will also run later. Eyal Habib is doing musical arrangements and production for us."

Will you focus more on theater now?

"Definitely, I would be very happy to be part of an ensemble in the theater and get offers for campaigns and everything, everything related to the acting profession, to do everything I could not until now because I was identified with the lottery."

What will you do on evenings that have suddenly become vacant for you without the lotteries?

"Whoever wants me to perform, I'm available on Tuesdays ... and I can also fly abroad for more than two weeks!

You get it?

Throughout the years I could not miss more than one lottery.

I would look for a freedom flight with the family accordingly, and for the first ten years I did not go on leave at all. "

What is the legacy you leave behind for your raffle replacements?

"Everyone has a replacement, but the fact that I stayed for years. If I had not been good or fit - they would not have left me there for so many years. In terms of my style, maybe you see that I do it from the heart, in love, see that I love people. Really. I believed, and I still believe, that this is a contribution to the state, otherwise I could not have done it. "

• • •

The Lottery responded: "The Lottery and the production company 'Maagalot' appreciate and cherish the municipality of Anavi for many years in which it successfully hosted the lottery. "There is a lot in her new way, and we are sure that she will make a force in whatever path she chooses."

Maya19.10@gmail.com

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