Celia (Zilla) Agadati

חברא קדישא תל אביב

כתבה במעריב

Mother of all : life and death of legendary teacher Zila

Zilla mythical legendary teacher, who has grown the children of Israel leaders in her kindergarten at "Hod Workers Housing" in Frug street, passed away last week (Zman Tel Aviv - Amit Levinson - 18.9.2011)

Last Monday died at age 98 legendary Zilla, kindergarten teacher in "Hod Workers Housing", who raised generations of children on her lap. Many of them have not forgotten it to this day, and even made her funeral and reminisced exciting life.

The Agadati ("Legendary") family name carries with it a kind of magic - meaning, connotation. So brothers Baruch and Isaac Agadati: Baruch, who was an artist, dancer and events producer, even before the term "Party man" was invented, and Isaac, founded with Mordechai Navon Geva Movie Studios and produced quite a few movies ("He Walked Through the Fields", "I Like Mike"); so legendary Zilla, wife of Isaac and the legendary teacher in "Hod Workers Housing".

Cilia was born in 1913 in Ukraine to Israel and Ruth Regulant, and arrived in Tel Aviv with her family at the age of ten. In 1936 she opened the nursery in Frug street workers housing, where she took care for the children of the community leaders and most of the neighborhood children. Once she told me how she opened the first kindergarten. "I got only a basement and mats", she said.

"I visited the homes of all children to get to know them and their families, so I was able to develop a more personal treatment. Toys I made by myself. Later I set up a petting zoo first before anybody thought about it."

The Agadati house had atmosphere of abroad

The young teacher was both beautiful and courted. "Itzik saw me at a dance party, tapped me on the shoulder. Since then we were together," she told me in the past. Itzik is of course Isaac Agadati, legendary as his brother Baruch, whose family name was offered by Chaim Nachman Bialik , instead of the original name Kaushansky.

Zilla was the teacher of thousands of children. A few of them would come to visit her in the WIZO senior residence in Tel Aviv, where she lived for many years. Hoe many people continue to visit their teacher after 60-50 years?

Zilla Agadati had the privilege not to be forgotten. She did not have children of her own, but some of her kindergarten children remained her kindergarten children. Some of them even attended her funeral last Tuesday.

"Every Hanukkah she built a huge dreidel and asked some children to hide in it and surprise other children," said in the funeral Tamar Katznelson-Shochat, educator and creative artist, also a child of Zilla's kindergarten in Frug street. I remember Tzilla herslef getting into the dreidel, surprising the kids with her creative inventions .

"In Zilla's and Isaac home there was the atmosphere of abroad, long before they know what it is here," tells Zilla's nephew. "Zilla went abroad with uncle Isaac for cinema production trips, so she had an interesting combination of a dedicated teacher and a woman of the big world."

20 years ago Zilla decided to move from her well-kept apartment in Huberman street to the WIZO senior residence in King David avenue. There she had a tiny apartment, and got a lot of love: family visited a lot, preschool children continued to visit.

Malka Amir-Mandelbaum, caregiver and friend of Zilla at WIZO Tel Aviv, preserves inscriptions like "To Malka, who cares with dedication and love on my teacher's Zilla". In the place which was her home in recent years there are pages with memoirs she wrote, thank-you letters from the kindergarten children, and the longing to a special woman, noble and humble, multi-faceted and so loved.