Rochelle Stelman, a color adjustment worker in a laboratory at the "Kafri" factory in Kfar Gaza
"Now we're in an emergency routine, so I'm back at work." Rochelle Stelman, Photo: Yossi Zeliger
About two weeks ago, a month and a half after the terrorists destroyed her kibbutz, Rochelle Stelman entered the factory where she works and took a lot of air. It wasn't just boredom that overwhelmed her and brought her back to work. There was also there, in her broken heart, the legacy of Nadav Goldstein, the plant's deputy director, who was murdered with his family on Black Saturday. A legacy of doing, of work, of activity.
Polyron factory in Kibbutz Zikim
In early November, she arrived to check the competence of the factory, which supplies raw plastics to companies in the food and construction industry. Make sure the machines are there, that the color lab is working. A week later, she was already at work.
She is 66 years old, divorced and a mother of three. She has lived in the village of Gaza for 38 years. She raised three children there, who have been unwilling to return for years due to the security situation. Now no one is talking about going back anymore. Most of the residents of the kibbutz, which suffered many losses on that terrible Shabbat, were evacuated to Kibbutz Shefayim. Some were evacuated to Tel Aviv. The rest – including Rukhele, who lives with her sister in Warburg Field – are scattered.
"For the first few weeks, I was very busy, as part of the ZHI team. But now we're in an emergency routine, so I went back to work. I knew that the American company waiting for our goods had a lot of empathy for us, but they also needed the goods. And so we need to move forward. Not cowardly – or let's say, not so smart – I asked to go back to work in the countryside. I'm not alone here, obviously. There are a few dozen people hanging out here, and everyone is doing what they can."
"I walked around the kibbutz full of longing. Now I'm businesslike: I come to work, to the factory, and go back to Warburg Field." Rochelle Stelman, Photo: Yossi Zeliger
The long drive from Warburg Airport, which takes about an hour and a half each way without traffic jams, does not deter her: "Some people do it every day routinely, so now I do it. I don't come here every day, but when I do, it gives me a lot of adrenaline and feels very good.
"The first few times I came to the village of Gaza, I felt terrible. I didn't know what I was going for. So I came to order, to check, to see that everything was fine. I walked around the kibbutz full of longing. Now I'm businesslike: I come to work, to the factory, and go back to Warburg Field. I have no choice. I already know it's not the home I had. There is something very comfortable about imagining a routine. For me, at least, it's a form of rehabilitation. Getting angry at a color pattern that doesn't work out, or at the computer that hangs, and not getting upset because the army doesn't answer me, or the army doesn't come. Because we were in that episode too."
Amir Dvora, manager of Strauss's vegetable factory in Bror Hayil
He gets up in the early morning, gets into the car and drives for an hour and a half, sometimes two hours, to the factory in Bror Hayil. Amir Dvora, Photo: Yossi Zeliger
At 7:00 A.M., when Amir Dvora is on the long drive from the temporary house near Hadera to the factory in the south, he turns on the radio and listens anxiously to the names of those who fell in the fighting. "Entire families are paying the heaviest price for my home," his voice breaks, "and there's a dissonance between the realization that the area has to be cleaned up and the price the families pay, and it's a terrible feeling."
He is 51 years old, married to Michal (47), a father of three and has lived on Kibbutz Yad Mordechai for about 30 years. Eighteen military operations, meanwhile, were conducted while he lived there. He never left home until the Sabbath when he and the kibbutz residents were evacuated to the Ramada Hotel in Givat Olga. They've been here for a month and a half, five people in a hotel room, along with an entire community. A month and a little during which he gets up in the early morning, gets into the car and drives an hour and a half, sometimes two hours, to the factory in Bror Hayil. Just over 18km from the fence, in a factory trying to maintain routine.
He wanted to open the factory a few days after the massacre, but the security situation did not allow it. Amir Dvora, Photo: Yossi Zeliger
"In war, that's my job. I don't know how to shoot and fight. I know how to run a factory and make people productive. Some of our employees are unable to return to work, physically and mentally. But we want to allow those who want to return to feel that they are part of the action, and allow them a routine."
Amir wanted to open the factory a few days after the massacre, but the security situation did not allow it. Only a few weeks later, towards the end of October, did he manage to open. Initially, only a few workers arrived, but as the days went by, more and more workers wanted to return, to feel some normalcy. Still, only about 60 percent of workers have returned.
When there are no workers in the warehouse, Amir moves boxes there. When there is a shortage of quality control workers, he does the work himself. "We work in an emergency routine – but in a routine, and we try very hard to maintain this whole thing in order to save the farmers' goods, and to provide vegetables for us, the workers and the farmers. And we take care of each other, and we make sure that we are pleasant. They bring croissants, all kinds of delicious things, to make us feel a bit normal.
"We have security guards walking around with a bullet in the barrel, and I stay until the last of the workers goes in the afternoon." Amir Dvora, Photo: Yossi Zeliger
"We have security guards walking around with a bullet in the barrel, and I stay until the last employee goes in the afternoon, to make sure everyone is safe. The farmers pick up whatever is left and work hard to have vegetables, and we fight together with them.
"The work gives a sense of relief. When you're busy with work, you don't think about other things. About the home left behind, about the fighting, about the longing."
Rita Stakhov, laboratory manager at Strauss's saline factory in Sderot
The fracture has not yet healed, but she feels that this is her way of contributing to warfare and success. Rita Stahov, Photo: Yossi Zeliger
Rita Stahov, 51, walks vigorously around a factory in the Sapirim industrial zone in Sderot. Four days after the massacre, she came here to check with the management what was left and if the machines and the laboratory could be operated. Since then, she gets up every morning at her home in Sderot and goes to work. The fracture has not yet healed, but Rita feels that this is her way of contributing to warfare and success.
The streets of the city boulevards are almost deserted. Most of the residents were evacuated from the city, including Rita's mother, who is currently in Eilat. Her father died about a month before the war, and Rita still mourns the fact that they didn't make it to the cemetery to mark the 30th anniversary of his death.
"Some people say he watched over me that Shabbat. Every morning, whether it was Shabbat or a holiday, I would go for a walk at 5:30 in the morning. That Saturday I only woke up when it was red alert, so I didn't go for a walk. Later I discovered that my regular walking route was the murder route of the terrorists."
"It sounds cliché, but here I feel safe, and I feel powerful. The factory is like my home." Rita Stahov, Photo: Yossi Zeliger
Since that Shabbat, Rita has not returned to the hiking track. She does her sport in the factory. "It sounds cliché, but here I feel safe, and I feel powerful. The factory is like my home. When I had my birthday, on 20 October, an armed courier came and brought me flowers from work. The whole country is broken up, we're all broken, but it was important to people that I get flowers on my birthday. And these are the people I work for today."
She has lived in Sderot for 23 years, working in a factory for 23 years. She is divorced and her 31-year-old son lives in Tel Aviv. Even her son understands that there is nothing to try to convince his mother to leave the house in Sderot.
She has lived in Sderot for 23 years, working in a factory for 23 years. Rita Stahov, Photo: Yossi Zeliger
"Everyone fights where they can, and this is my way of contributing. That's my doing. And my son knows that I have a high sense of commitment and dedication, and that I will not leave home. Tell you I'm not afraid? I do. I'm not a hero. And when there's a red color, I run to the safe room. But I feel it's part of my Zionism. I have an employee who was evacuated to the Dead Sea, and after a week and a half she left the hotel and returned to Sderot to work."
"Barry's farmers are working alongside the difficulty, continuing to supply potatoes. This is Zionism and this is work, and thanks to these people, and this nation that rises up and does what is necessary, we will win. There is no other way. Just like that."
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