We shall not stop dancing

Angela Bertz (c)  

Chapter 1 A day in the life of Liat

Chapter 2 A day in the life of Amos

Chapter 3 A day in the life of Esther

Chapter 4 A day in the life of Ron

Chapter 5 A day in the life of Yoni

Chapter 6 A day in the life of Isaac

Chapter 7 A day in the life of Suzy

Chapter 8 A day in the life of Dina

Chapter 9 A day in the life of Sarah

Chapter 10 A day in the life of Debbie

Chapter 11 A day in the life of Goldie

Chapter 12 A day in the life of Maya

Chapter 1 

A day in the life of Liat

"And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a G-d unto thee and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land of thy sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their G-d."

Genesis 17:7 

Liat had tossed and turned most of the night. She reached out and looked at her clock for about the hundredth time and sighed. Only three minutes had passed since she had last looked. It was still only 5 am. The night was never ending. She put on her bedside lamp and surveyed her face and for a moment turned her attention to more practical matters as she pondered whether to use tea bags or cucumber slices for those dark rings under her eyes. Both were excellent remedies. The flat was quiet. Both her parents were still asleep. She slipped out of bed, shivering as her feet hit the cold stone floor and headed for the kitchen. She made herself some chamomile tea in the hope that its relaxant properties would ease her tension, deciding to help it along with a pill for her headache. She heard a car in the distance with a radio blaring loudly. Even at this hour Tel Aviv would be full of night time revelers returning from any number of discos and bars. She loved the town and considered herself "A Tel Aviv Girl". She winced slightly at the thought and returned to bed to wait out the next few hours before her day would begin. The whole business was marring her excitement about the weekend. If only she had told her parents about it earlier.  

Liat's origins were Yemenite. Her grandparents came to Israel in the late 1940's. The State of Israel was barely established and her parents, together with her grandparents, became part of an extensive large-scale airlift from Aden that in 1949\/1950 transported 47,000 Jews from Yemen. All the more amazing was that many of them had made their way on foot to the British colony and had never seen an airplane before. Carried on "the wings of an eagle" they spent some time in camps before being assimilated into Israeli society. Her grandparents were all deceased now and Liat only had vague recollections of them. Her parents were proud of their heritage and instilled the same pride in their only daughter. Her parent's families knew each other from Yemen and there was even some distant family connection. They married in 1962 when they had both been 20 years old. Anxious to start a family her mother was for years plagued with miscarriages and worse still suffered the tragedy of a still birth.  

She couldn't get back to sleep and after tossing for an hour and flipping idly through the pages of a few fashion magazines she slipped out of bed and opened her closet. She had finished the army almost six months ago and now worked in a trendy boutique. It accounted for the very packed wardrobe. She was proud of it and considered herself a very "in" sort of girl. Liat could tell her friends a thing or two about fashion and make up and often did. She was equally proud of the way her closet had been set up according to colors, starting with white, going down to black with just about every color combination in between. Neat rows of t shirts and jumpers sat folded to perfection in the same neat order on shelves. Her shoes and bags were afforded the same personal attention and shoes, sandals and boots were all neatly separated in the same perfect order. Liat was fond of telling her friends that there was nothing worse than having a great outfit if you didn't have just the right bag and shoes to go with it. She turned her attention to her makeup and like everything else there was any number of color combinations. She could be cute in pink, sultry in red, flamboyant in orange or subtle in beige. You just had to know how to blend the right colors, to go with the right outfit of course. Her dark looks were a blessing and meant that most colors looked good on her. She examined the clothes that had been put aside. It would take her five minutes to pack them late that afternoon. No point in doing it now. There was nothing worse than a creased looking outfit. She was fastidious about things like that.