Geula Zilberman - Kibuttz Nir Oz
On Friday evening, the sixth of October, Geula hosted her daughter and her family for dinner. At the end of the evening her family decided to go back to their house and Geula, who did not want to be alone, went to her partner who lives on Kibbutz Hazerim.
On the morning of Saturday October 7, the terrorists entered her home, destroyed, broke, smashed and looted the entire place. It was through the kibbutz’s Whatsapp group that she understood what was going on.
During our visit with Geula at her home on the kibbutz, we hear a story about a picture she was unable to save and a coffee table she built with her own hands in which she combined dried flowers she collected from the places surrounding the kibbutz. Geula told us how as a girl who was born in Morocco and grew up in Dimona, she first called every flower "Anemone", regardless of its appearance.
40 years ago, she says, she learned the craft of creating vitrage windows from a Dutch volunteer and even participated in a class where she created various pieces. Unfortunately, the terrorists destroyed them all so there was nothing left to save.
Geula asked us to renew a vitrage that she had received as a gift from a member of a kibbutz who came from England. The vitrage had been installed alongside the front door of the house, and now had a large crack down the center.
As part of the project, we carefully rescued the vitrage from the door of Geula's house and was transferred to a workshop in Jerusalem that specializes in stained glass. "This is the only memento I have left from my vitrage days," says Geula. "Maybe one day I'll come back to it. The Jerusalem artist sparked a renewed interest in this work and reminded me of beautiful times of creating and working on the kibbutz."