Leah Axelrod

Leah, my mother, was born in the small village of Samoshkani, Moldova on 1912.

Went to a Hebrew Heder as a child so her knowledge of Hebrew was excellent. Leah lost her father at a very young age and lived with her mother and 6 brothers and sisters , four of them younger than her, under very poor and hard conditions.

For some years she had to leave home and stay with her relatives, the Mushinski family, in the town of Rezina where she attended Secondary School.

As a young woman Leah joined the Zionist movement Gordonia, which was popular among Jewish youth in Moldova-Romania.There she met Lucia-Eliyahu, her future husband. -Lucia was her guide and tutor. Together they made Hachshara [=preparation for farming] in Romania. In 1936, Leah and Lucia made Alia to Israel, [then Palestine under the British Mandate]. Leah was a real pioneer, working as a road construtor and later as a baker for the Kibbutz which she and her comrades founded - Nir Am.

In 1942 Leah left the young Kibbutz, feeling that the communal way of life there, where everything had to be shared and every private and most intimate decision had to be taken and approved by the "general assembly", did not agree with her way of thinking and living. She wanted to make her own independent decisions and be fully responsible for the education of her half year old baby [Zahava=myself]. Lucia stayed in the Kibbutz for several months by himself but later "gave up" and joined her.[Let it be said that Lucia himself was quite satisfied and happy in the Kibbutz where he served as general secretaryand was very popular with the community].

The young family lived in Kfar Atta and five years later [1947] moved to Rishon Leziyon where Leah's brother Yosef lived with his family. Leah, my mother, now with two children[ my brother Arik was born In 1946] was very much helped by her aunt, "Mime Ides", Yehudith Sikler, her father's sister. Mime Ides loaned her the money needed to purchase the very old house and property on Gluskin Street which we rented from Mr Itiel

איתיאל [ a famous character from Alia Shnia- Ben-Gurion's close friend in the old days]

[It was the sum of 400 pounds which was a lot of money for my parents, at the time]. Later the money was returned by my parents, but this noble act was never forgotten by my mother.

Other relatives of Leah, The Rachewski family , who owned a small factory of floor tiles helped us by employing my father as a tile maker in their business.

At the beginning of 1948,