ABSTRACT
Each morning at seven, six days a week, Father would set out, in his van, clad in his long khaki shorts and knee-high khaki socks, to his small electrics factory in Haifa bay. He would return, smelling of metal-Father worked with his handsat around four, have his mid-day meal and take a nap for an hour. This was quiet time-we children had to be silent. We also had to be silent between two and four, the traditional Schlaf Stunde in which Mother, and our neighbours, immigrants from Mitteleuropa (central Europe-Czechoslovakia, Germany, Austria and, like us, Bukovina), all rested. When Father rose, there was afternoon coffee and cake. Occasionally, Mother’s women friends, and their children, would join us for strudel or cheese buchtels, my very favourites.
