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He is still Moish, always looking for the next challenge and bringing sunshine into my life.
By DVORA WAYSMAN DECEMBER 18, 2024 01:12
Dvora Waysman (R) and her son Moish.
(photo credit: COURTESY DVORA WAYSMAN)
Every parent feels that his/her child is unique, but in the case of Moish, the second of my four children, I am continually having it confirmed.
I was at a gathering some time ago when – on his hearing my name –a young man came up to me and said, “There are very many Moshes in Israel, but only one Moish!”
I won’t pretend that Moish was a perfect child back in Australia, his birthplace, where he was called Morris. In fact, from the age of about 10, he caused us a lot of trauma. He wanted to be like the cool kids who were growing their hair long, but my very conventional husband insisted he go regularly to the barber for “a short back and sides.”
This resulted in his threatening to leave home (he’d come back when he was hungry) – however, for days afterward, he would wear an ugly woollen cap he’d found somewhere, pulled down to cover as much of his face as possible, hoping he wouldn’t be recognized.
This haircut trauma lasted even after our aliyah in 1971 – in fact, I think until his army service.
Moish began his army service in 1987 at Kibbutz Alumim – just 15 km. southeast of Gaza – 700 hectares (1,730 acres) of carrots, avocados, cotton, citrus orchards, potatoes, and wheat.
Alumim was founded in 1966 by two Israeli units of Nahal soldiers, combining army service with agriculture. They work there for one year out of their three and a half years of army service (part of the attraction is that there are women soldiers, too).
After five years in Israel, Morris (now Moish) took it for granted that he would devote a few years to serving his new country. I will never forget standing on the beach at Palmahim, with a group of other frightened parents, watching Moish make his first parachute jump.
Forty young paratroopers jumped that day. Because of the plane’s height in the air, it was impossible to see their faces until they had almost landed.
We watched breathlessly to see the parachutes open, one by one. I thought each one was my son, finally coming to the realization that they were all my sons!
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Moish and his close friends called themselves the chevra – loosely translated as “the gang.” At Alumim, the added ingredient of girls was something new and exciting. Strange as it may seem in today’s permissive age, the boys had spent their high school years in religious boys’ schools like Himmelfarb in Jerusalem’s Bayit Vagan neighborhood.
As far as we parents knew, their activities had been restricted to homework, football, basketball, and chess, with maybe movies and pizza when they could afford it. Now I suspect that parents don’t know everything.
The “chevra” decided to do their army service in the framework of Nahal, forming their own unit and joining the army as a group. Pretty girls were sought to round out the numbers.
I knew many of the boys long before they became soldiers – they were Moish’s friends since we had made aliyah. Udi and Yisrael were his best friends, and they became inseparable.
The years passed, and they fought together in Lebanon during the Litani Operation. Moish, who did further training as a medic, was there when Udi was shot in the head, and he looked after him until the rescue helicopter arrived.
Marriage and beyond
There were two unit weddings (Adi and Chani; Danny and Julie). Moish, on a return visit to Alumim years later, married Noga, a much younger member of the kibbutz. I vividly remember the night he brought her home to meet us.
My husband, Zvi, delighted to know that she was from a Modern Orthodox family like ours, spent the whole day getting ready. He put on a suit and tie and went to the barber for a shave and a haircut. At 6 p.m., Moish arrived with Noga and said, “Mum and Dad, this is Noga. We have to go now” and promptly left, leaving us in bereft astonishment.
After the army, on our insistence, Moish went to university and got his BSc in agricultural science, to my amazement, because when I went for a trip to Australia to visit my family, I left him in charge of my plants. When I came back, he proudly told me he had watered them all regularly (including one – I pointed out to him – that was made of plastic!).
He wanted to go into business with Udi and Yisrael. Udi’s grandfather had a small business packaging spices for Mahaneh Yehuda, and he did it all by hand – no machinery. Udi had visions of how it could become more profitable. In 1984, Moish and Yisrael joined him… without capital and nothing but friendship and a dream.
They rented a small factory in Givat Shaul. At night, the neighbors must have imagined it was a nightclub because lights burned until the early hours, and there was the sound of voices and laughter. This was, in fact, friends from the unit coming to help after their own jobs finished.
By hand, they packaged the spices, weighed them, and stuck on labels. Friends helping friends get started, bonded together, as once in the army. MAYA (the initials of Moish, Yisrael, and Udi) was born.
For five years they didn’t really earn a salary – they all had a second job delivering newspapers from 4 a.m. Finally, they took out bank loans and expanded the range of goods they packaged. They also bought their first machinery and a delivery truck, acquiring the Badatz kashrut certificate so that even the most religious could use their products.
Today, Moish has over 40 years of experience in the food industry. In 1998, MAYA moved to the industrial zone of Mishor Adumim and today produces, packs, and markets over 1,000 products with the most advanced equipment. The company has 350 employees and a fleet of delivery trucks.
Always looking for new challenges, then came Moish’s move to the settlement of Allon. If you can imagine the landscape of the moon – bare hills, eagles overhead, snakes and scorpions, almost no vegetation, an unearthly beauty – then you can picture the first image of Allon.
You drive up lonely, winding mountain roads. Why would anyone want to live there?
But Moish did, with the brave agreement of his wife, Noga, and their baby, Daniel. Moish moved to Allon because he envisaged a place where people of all views, all levels of religiosity or secularism, could live together in harmony and respect for one another.
One people, one country, living together in harmony.
In 1990, Allon began with a few prefabricated houses, 45 square meters in size. Noga made their home attractive by hanging plants, and Daniel had his own little room. A generator provided electricity. Above the little cluster of houses on the hilltop, the blue-and-white flag of Israel flew bravely.
Today there are more than 250 beautiful homes and all the necessary amenities. More than 1,000 people live there, and Moish is now the father of three sons and grandfather of four children. Daniel and his family live a bit farther down the street.
Despite his macho image, Moish softens and beams when he plays with his grandchildren, and he and Noga play an important role in their lives. But he is still Moish, always looking for the next challenge and bringing sunshine into my life.
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