Meanwhile, the Zionist leaders had sent emissaries from Palestine to Europe, to organize the new Jewish state. “The young Zionists prepared our immigration into Israel, the aliyah. I joined the socialist group Hashomer Hatzair. They gave us lessons on Jewish history and Zionism. But the British had put restrictions on immigration, so we stayed in the camp until March of 1948. I remember the vote at the United Nations, an incredible historical event. Just two years earlier, in the camps, we had no future. Now there was recognition of the right of the Jews to the land of their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We knew that the Jewish army, the Palmach, was smaller than the Arab armies. We were eager to take part in the war.”
On May 14, 1948, Lipa found himself in Marseilles, where he would take the first ship bound for Israel. “We set sail knowing that we had a state. When we arrived in Haifa, there was excitement in the air. The Jewish army enlisted us immediately. The women were taken to Kibbutz Masaryk, and we were left to guard them. Then to another kibbutz, Ein Hashofet. While I was still at Kfar Masaryk, I married Judith in a religious ceremony, but without any celebration.” Lipa was alone in the world. There was no one to share his joy. “I worked in the dairy for one year, and then I was enlisted in the artillery for two more.”
In November 1950, Avner was born. “Avner means ‘memory of my father.’ We wanted to honor my father and Judith’s father, who had been exterminated in Auschwitz. Two years later I became a reservist, and I returned to my job at the dairy. It was hard; the kibbutz depended on our work. But it was very satisfying—rewarding in a way that can’t be measured in monetary terms. The kibbutz became my life. The standard of living was low, but the quality of education was very high, and that was the most important thing for me. I hadn’t received any formal education since middle school, and this way of life allowed me to study. I made up the ground that I had lost. I saw the progress and success of the kibbutz as a living testimony to the expertise of Jews who had been viewed as less than human in the camps. We Jews now had a country, where we did every sort of agricultural work and sold the fruits of our labors. We were capable of defending ourselves. I found myself in a country where the Jews were laborers, farmers, merchants, actors, musicians—in other words, a normal country. We were independent, and we didn’t exploit anyone.”
In 1956, Lipa had another son, Yanay—the one who would be killed by a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv. “I was no longer a refugee. I had my family, even if it looked different from the outside. The hours I spent with my children were the best hours of the day. After living in a tent, we moved into a real building, into a little apartment that was very cozy, a source of satisfaction. I began working on a state-of-the-art chicken farm. All over the country, Israeli agriculture had moved from primitive to modern and scientific. We were innovators in many fields. During these years, I was frequently called up from the reserve.”
The years went by, and in 1965 there was a third son, Gidi. “Avner played the flute and oboe. Yanay loved to listen to stories. On Sundays we went for walks, and we spent many hours in the swimming pool that the members of the kibbutz had built by themselves.” Later, recalls Lipa, “Yanay developed a great talent for music; he played the violin and the guitar, and the kibbutz paid for his lessons. We wanted our children to develop their talents.”
When war broke out in 1967, all Israeli men had to enlist, and Lipa did his duty as a reservist. “I worked on the farm for twenty-one years,” he recounts, “and then I studied management on behalf of the kibbutz and began working in the field of management. I worked until I was seventy-nine years old, when I had to retire for health reasons. Since my retirement, I have been active in the senior citizens’ center.” Judith and Lipa divorced in 1981, and Lipa married Pnina, who was also a member of the kibbutz. “We spent twenty splendid years together, in mutual love and respect. Pnina got kidney disease and had to undergo dialysis, but although we had done everything we could, she died in September of 2000.”
All three of Lipa’s sons served in the army: Avner in the artillery, Yanay in the music band, and Gidi in the aviation sector. “Although I myself had been a reserve soldier for twenty-six years, my anxiety and concern for my sons has been a constant in my life,” Lipa says. He has found great joy in his grandchildren. Avner’s first daughter, Inbal, was born in 1979, followed by Avital, Ami, and Daniel. “To hold a grandchild in my arms, receive a kiss, be called Saba, ‘Grandpa,’ the laughter, the games, the delight of their first words—all of this has been a joy.”
The first of the Weiss family to fall victim to a suicide bomber was the charming Inbal. “She had served as a teacher in the army. One day a week, she went to the archives of Beit Lohamei HaGeta’ot, the center that documents the Jewish resistance against the Nazis—the partisans, the clandestine fighters, and those who rebelled in the ghettos. She was motivated by compassion, and by her connection to her grandparents and the Jewish people. Inbal and I had a special relationship, we talked about many things, she admired me and I admired her.” After her military service, it was time for Inbal to enter college. “She went to Emek Yisrael College. She started bringing me books, and she did a project on the policies of the Jewish Agency for Israel in my kibbutz. I admired her tenacity and determination. She was sent to the dean’s office, where she was told that she had been chosen for a special program. I remember that it was November 29, 2001, and Inbal called to tell me; she was excited, proud, and happy. I planned to see her that Friday at dinner at her parents’ house in Zichron Ya’akov. She always took the bus home. But that Thursday, she took a different route to meet her parents and go to the restaurant. The route wound through a number of Arab villages. Her parents called her on her cell phone to find out where she was. Two minutes later, the suicide bomber blew himself up. The bus was almost empty; there were three dead. Inbal was one of them.”
Israeli television interrupted its broadcasts to report on the attack. “I was nervous. I called Avner at home and the children told me that Avner and Marianne had gone to wait for Inbal at the bus stop. I called his cell phone and asked him where she was. I realized that Inbal had been on the bus. Later they went to identify the body. It was a horrible night. I went to Zichron to watch the children. We sat down in shock; no one said a word. We were alone with our sadness and our anger. Their parents returned in the middle of the night. We sat up until the morning, waiting for the funeral. It was rainy, another note of sadness. Pnina, my second wife, had died the year before, and I missed her deeply. I sat down to write my eulogy for Inbal. I don’t think I wept the way I did that night in Auschwitz, when my whole family was killed, maybe because I had to think about the things I had to do. But I had not wept since that night in the camps. Now everything made me weep. I missed Inbal so much; I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about her. I decided that I couldn’t let this crush me. I focused on my sons and returned to my routine. Inbal had been killed because she was a Jew, just like my parents, my relatives, and six million more.”
Yanay Weiss, Lipa’s second son, had left the kibbutz after his military service. “He wanted to become a musician, to make a living with music, although he would do any kind of work.” In Tel Aviv he married Orna, whose father was a survivor of Auschwitz and whose mother, together with her twin sister, had been among the “Mengele twins” who were subjected to horrifying medical experiments. “Orna taught at a nursery school and then worked as a therapist. Because they lived far away, I didn’t see them as often as I wanted. We saw each other once a month and at the holidays. Yanay gave up his dream of being a musician to work for a high-tech company, but he never gave up on music. He organized a band and a choir for the employees. On Tuesday night they were playing at Mike’s Place, and many of their friends and fans were there. The pub was full of people who had come to listen to them. They weren’t being paid anything; their only compensation was joy. Yanay had a family full of warmth and love.”
On April 29, 2003, Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, Orna was at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, happy because they were going to give her an award for her work. “They decided to meet at the station in Tel Aviv. Yanay came with a bouquet of flowers, they had coffee, and then she went home and he went to the pub. That evening Yanay’s brother was at the pub, but he left a few minutes before the attack.