How did you come to Kfar Saba? 

I was born in central Tel Aviv, and in 1975, I met my wife, Stephanie, who had come on Aliyah a few months earlier. She was a fashion buyer at Marks & Spencer in London. In Israel, at the time, there were only “Ata” and “Polgat” factories in the fashion business, so she settled for working in a bank, where I also worked, and that is how we met and never parted.        

Just before our wedding, we bought a flat in Bat-Yam, but the city was too crowded to our liking, so in 1982 we bought our current flat in Kfar-Saba. We wanted to buy in Ra’anana, but we couldn’t afford it. Our flat was a 5-room flat, which we converted into 4. Stephanie used her good taste in it. We discussed a lot about refurbishing it, but it never happened. A year and a half ago, Stephanie passed away, and I count the minutes since her passing. I kept the flat as it was to commemorate her. 

We couldn’t have children, so we travelled a lot. We were very curious about other countries, and so we travelled to dozens of countries (50). Some of our adventures: In Australia, we flew in a helicopter over the Great Barrier Reef and landed on a floating platform. In Hawaii, we sailed in a rough sea to watch the molten lava from an active volcano spilling into the ocean, and Stephanie got seasick. In Papua New Guinea, our boat got stuck on a sandbar, so all of our group had to get off the boat to push, and suddenly we saw a crocodile in front of us. 

We always wanted to travel to places and meet with the natives, and Stephanie was cool and collected, with amazing composure. Stephanie could make people want her to take their photo and often even to be photographed with her. She was unique.                

We have a lot of artefacts in our house, from all over the world: statues and masks from the Zulu tribe in Africa, others from Papua New Guinea, Easter Island, Alaska, New Zealand, Cambodia and a totem pole from Canada.  

Stephanie also collected elephants from around the world – 80 of them, most of them were in the kitchen. After her passing, I moved them to a special glass cabinet in the living room. Many of her paintings hang on the walls.     

With all your travels, have you ever thought of living abroad? 

No. We always asked ourselves what our next destination would be. We travelled a lot to England, but we never discussed the possibility of living there.  

When people come to our house, they admire the artefacts and the paintings. We are not “Feinschmeckers” at all; it’s just that most people never come across such items. Many people told us that it creates a special atmosphere at home.  

What are the advantages and disadvantages of living here? 

We were lucky that our flat is at the back of our building and faces a garden with trees, so it’s quiet. Kfar Saba grew to become a big city, but it is a nice place. Our neighbours are nice, people are kind and the city centre is only a walking distance away. So it’s very comfortable. One traffic light and I’m on the road to Tel Aviv. The traffic is a bit heavy, and it’s a shame that there is no balcony, but I’m not complaining.  

In retrospect, was it a good decision to move from Bat-Yam to Kfar Saba? 

Definitely. We never said “Oh, we made a mistake”. Financially, we couldn’t live in Tel Aviv, and here it’s all nice and quiet. I will stay here for sure; however, now the quietness is really overwhelming sometimes.