KIRYAT SHMONA – Having grown up in this heavily bombarded city just one mile east of the Lebanese border, the Saadia family is no stranger to war. Since the 1960s, the city has been the frequent target of rockets launched from Lebanon.
But a year ago it hit closer to home. Liran Saadia has the tragic distinction of being one of the first Israeli soldiers killed in combat during the Second Lebanon War. He was 21.
“He was killed right over this mountain,” Liran’s father Zion said, pointing to the peak shadowing their home. “So he protected us and this city.”
Zion and his wife Michal were in Thailand when the tragic news reached them. When the war began on July 12, 2006, Liran insisted that his parents continue their vacation and not worry about him.
They spoke with Liran at 12:30 p.m. on July 20. He was killed less than three hours later.
“When I saw the Israeli ambassador coming toward us at the hotel, I ran toward her and said, ‘Please tell me my son is only injured, that he lost a leg or an arm,’” Zion recalled, knowing a visit from a government official can only mean bad news. “The ambassador said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’”
That began a long, sad journey back to Israel in disbelief.
“I thought it had to be a mistake,” Michal said. “I had to return to Israel and see the body so I could tell them it was a mistake, that it wasn’t my son.”
The funeral took place under the threat of falling rockets, but the attacks eased for two hours enabling the family to bury their son under a pink and smoky sky. Then they sat shiva in a bomb shelter rather than at home so as not to endanger their guests.
“For two weeks I had a bad feeling,” Michal said, referring to Liran’s transfer from a counseling position in the army to a combat unit three months before the completion of his mandatory service. With a mother’s intuition, she was wary about the move but kept silent. “Every mother in the country knows this feeling, but we all say nothing will happen to us.”
Now, family members are coping with the loss in their own way. The oldest daughter, Hadar, 21, is in the army and has recently been promoted to lieutenant.
“We’re always scared of war and that there will be another,” Hadar said. “But since our tragedy, it’s personal now. We identify. To us it’s no longer just another name announced on the news.”
Yarden, 16, talks about her brother all the time and made a video of him, but her school work is suffering. Aviv, the youngest at 12, doesn’t mention Liran at all, but is quietly mimicking his brother in basketball and drawing cartoons. He even picked up guitar, something Liran did in the last few months of his life.
The parents manage in their own ways.
“From the moment I heard Liran died, I chose life,” Zion said. “It is so difficult for us, but it is the right choice. The other choice is to give up, and then the whole family would collapse.”
Their grief still profoundly apparent, the family is focusing on Liran’s legacy rather than his death. They talk about a vibrant young man who, since his childhood, gave selflessly.
“In life we only knew this much of Liran,” Zion said holding up two fingers a couple inches apart. “After he died, we saw so much more of him through his friends and people who come to visit us.”
Liran gave away a hard-earned top-of-the-line computer when he was 15. When he was 12, he saw a classmate selling cheap toys to help his family makes ends meet. Liran bought one to help his friend. And in his army years, Liran would bring friends home with him every weekend —soldiers with no family in Israel and nowhere to go on Shabbat (the Sabbath).
Building on this, the family established a scholarship fund in Liran’s name and is building a house for lone soldiers called Liran’s Home. The city of Kiryat Shmona donated a plot of land and a Christian ministry from Germany has taken up the cause, but the family is seeking additional sponsors.
The cost of Liran’s generosity was high for the family.
“He gave too much in the end,” Michal said. “He gave his life.”
For more information or to donate to Liran’s Way, e-mail: bedarkeyliran@walla.com
Aug 14, 2007
Taking Matters into His Own Hands
Two years after the Gaza pullout, one man starts from scratch
AVNEI EITAN – Under the blazing Golan sun, dry wind and flies whipping through the moshav, Yuval Matzliah sits at a handmade wooden picnic table and talks about the last two challenging years since being expelled from Gaza along with 8,500 other Jewish residents of the Gush Katif settlement bloc.
“Life won’t return to what it was in Gush Katif,” he said. “But we will return there, hopefully in another year. I love this land more than I loved anything in my life.”
Matzliah lives in a 90 square-meter (968 square-foot) temporary house, called a caravilla, on this collective farm near the Syrian border. He hasn’t found employment or received a permit to build a permanent home.
But Matzliah has taken matters into his own hands. The tables, ice cream hut and two wooden guesthouses on the moshav are his handiwork, an attempt to create jobs for both him and his neighbors.
“I decided I had to put the past behind and take care of my children,” he said. “So I began to look for a way to make a living. The state wasn’t doing anything, so we had to look on our own and we were starting from zero.”
Avnei Eitan, a religious community, took in 22 families from Gush Katif. The government built two rows of square orange houses, one floor each with no insulation. They remain undecorated and bleak. Breaking up the monotony are the large containers in backyards holding the families’ belongings.
A year into his exile from Gaza, still living in a hotel with his wife and three daughters, Matzliah sank into depression. When their son was born—and nearly died due to complications—his wife urged him to snap out of his despair for the sake of the family.
“I’m 32, I’m still young,” Matzliah said, “Imagine someone who is 50 years old, or sick or handicapped. How does he start over? I’m living well compared to most.”
According to a report by the Gush Katif Committee, Matzliah is right. Thirty seven percent of the settlers are still out of work, although Matzliah disputes that as too low a figure. Some 500 families are on welfare. And since many residents don’t have jobs, they are spending their compensation checks on daily needs rather than saving to build a home. Less than 1 percent of the settlers have started building permanent housing and most could be living in temporary housing for another five years.
The Ministry of Commerce says family income has decreased by 40 percent, with many receiving no income for two years. Young people face large gaps in their education, scarred from the trauma of eviction and switching schools several times.
Gaza’s Jewish communities once provided a high percentage of Israel’s agricultural produce, but of the 400 farms and other agricultural businesses that once operated in Gush Katif, only 33 have been compensated with land.
Matzliah’s parents, immigrants from France, were some of the first people to settle in Netzer Hazani in Gush Katif 30 years ago. Matzliah worked on a cow farm there, running the milking machines. He is also an expert carpenter.
He refused his first compensation check of 50,000 shekels (about $12,000) and told the government to hold it until they are ready to give him the whole sum they owe him.
So Matzliah, which means “he succeeds” in Hebrew, built two tzimmers (popular guesthouses in the north), in order to start making a living. He employed his neighbors and their children to help him build so they could also have some work.
While the tzimmers are charming and can accommodate a family of eight, there is a glut of them in the north. Matzliah hopes people will come because they want not only a place to stay, but a fascinating story. He is shocked when Israelis tell him they wish they could trade places because of all the compensation he got from the government.
“What compensation?” he asked while soberly noting that the small falafel and ice cream business he established barely pays salaries and will do even worse when tourism hibernates in the winter.
“Think of a man who has everything—a house, money in the bank and work,” he said. “Then all of a sudden he has nothing. You can’t imagine.”
AVNEI EITAN – Under the blazing Golan sun, dry wind and flies whipping through the moshav, Yuval Matzliah sits at a handmade wooden picnic table and talks about the last two challenging years since being expelled from Gaza along with 8,500 other Jewish residents of the Gush Katif settlement bloc.
“Life won’t return to what it was in Gush Katif,” he said. “But we will return there, hopefully in another year. I love this land more than I loved anything in my life.”
Matzliah lives in a 90 square-meter (968 square-foot) temporary house, called a caravilla, on this collective farm near the Syrian border. He hasn’t found employment or received a permit to build a permanent home.
But Matzliah has taken matters into his own hands. The tables, ice cream hut and two wooden guesthouses on the moshav are his handiwork, an attempt to create jobs for both him and his neighbors.
“I decided I had to put the past behind and take care of my children,” he said. “So I began to look for a way to make a living. The state wasn’t doing anything, so we had to look on our own and we were starting from zero.”
Avnei Eitan, a religious community, took in 22 families from Gush Katif. The government built two rows of square orange houses, one floor each with no insulation. They remain undecorated and bleak. Breaking up the monotony are the large containers in backyards holding the families’ belongings.
A year into his exile from Gaza, still living in a hotel with his wife and three daughters, Matzliah sank into depression. When their son was born—and nearly died due to complications—his wife urged him to snap out of his despair for the sake of the family.
“I’m 32, I’m still young,” Matzliah said, “Imagine someone who is 50 years old, or sick or handicapped. How does he start over? I’m living well compared to most.”
According to a report by the Gush Katif Committee, Matzliah is right. Thirty seven percent of the settlers are still out of work, although Matzliah disputes that as too low a figure. Some 500 families are on welfare. And since many residents don’t have jobs, they are spending their compensation checks on daily needs rather than saving to build a home. Less than 1 percent of the settlers have started building permanent housing and most could be living in temporary housing for another five years.
The Ministry of Commerce says family income has decreased by 40 percent, with many receiving no income for two years. Young people face large gaps in their education, scarred from the trauma of eviction and switching schools several times.
Gaza’s Jewish communities once provided a high percentage of Israel’s agricultural produce, but of the 400 farms and other agricultural businesses that once operated in Gush Katif, only 33 have been compensated with land.
Matzliah’s parents, immigrants from France, were some of the first people to settle in Netzer Hazani in Gush Katif 30 years ago. Matzliah worked on a cow farm there, running the milking machines. He is also an expert carpenter.
He refused his first compensation check of 50,000 shekels (about $12,000) and told the government to hold it until they are ready to give him the whole sum they owe him.
So Matzliah, which means “he succeeds” in Hebrew, built two tzimmers (popular guesthouses in the north), in order to start making a living. He employed his neighbors and their children to help him build so they could also have some work.
While the tzimmers are charming and can accommodate a family of eight, there is a glut of them in the north. Matzliah hopes people will come because they want not only a place to stay, but a fascinating story. He is shocked when Israelis tell him they wish they could trade places because of all the compensation he got from the government.
“What compensation?” he asked while soberly noting that the small falafel and ice cream business he established barely pays salaries and will do even worse when tourism hibernates in the winter.
“Think of a man who has everything—a house, money in the bank and work,” he said. “Then all of a sudden he has nothing. You can’t imagine.”
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