Candles were lit in the assisted living facility: “It’s nice to be able to celebrate together, especially for those who have no one to go with”
The hall slowly filled, and Tamar and Yaakov, who were to light the menorah, waited excitedly next to her to begin. The shelter residents came in a thin stream, some alone, some in chatty groups and a small but excited number in pairs. “They’re a couple, they don’t let go of each other,” one of the tenants whispered to her neighbor, “and she, she acts like she doesn’t hear anything, but she knows everything.”
The tenants sat down at their own pace and with confidence, not paying particular attention to the exact time. A couple came in after the band as the concert started, giggling in the back row.
The crowd sang the ignition prayer together and prayed for the return of the abductees. Then a string trio came and began playing a piece by Haydn, and were dismayed to find the audience still giggling and full of energy. Twice during the show, some tenants teased the more talkative groups.
The house is decorated for Hanukkah. “It’s nice to light candles together” (Photo: Amitai Peretz)
“Usually there is a lecture afterwards,” says 89-year-old resident Bracha Rosen. “So people are a little more focused.”
At the end of Haydn’s piece, some of the more energetic tenants walked out and the performance was quieter. Out in the lobby, some of the adults sat alone or in groups, while the therapists sat in large groups and spoke in a mix of English and Hebrew. “There are all kinds of countries here,” Rosen explains, “India, the Philippines, Uzbekistan, everything. Now it’s time for them to get some rest together.”
“It’s nice to light candles together,” said Ada Niv, a former Hebrew teacher at the Hebrew University. “Some nights people spend with this grandchild or that brother, but it’s nice to be able to celebrate together here, especially for those who have less time with whom.” For them, it is the first festival of lights in assisted living. “I joined three months ago and celebrated my 80th birthday here exactly a month ago. It’s nice to live with people. There are no monitors in the rooms here, so when the alarm goes off, all the adults sit together in the protected room upstairs for ten minutes, like everyone else. There are no discounts.”
Eda Niv (Photo: Amitai Peretz)
She was born in Israel and studied at the “Yishgav” school in Tel Aviv. “My daughter also studied there,” reveals Rosen, “but 20 years later.”
Niv went abroad, studied at Berkeley University in the USA and then returned to Israel. “I taught in the studio in Ra’anana,” she says, “in several waves of aliyah.” She moved into the assisted living community after her husband moved into a nearby assisted living community. “It’s not easy to clear out an entire apartment, but before that I lived in the same area of Hod Hasharon, so I stayed close by.”
Rosen says she came from Tel Aviv to follow her family. “I don’t go to all the candlelight, it’s not like being with family, but it’s nice too.” She and her husband were members of a kibbutz and later in State Department missions around the world. She is the oldest resident of the assisted living facility. “There are very interesting lectures here, there are also all kinds of courses, but I don’t like that much.”
Niv was actually waiting for class. “I realized the writing class was full, but I write poetry myself, so I started a new class.”
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