Ablum Milles

Ablum was born to Fortuna and Maurice Milles in Cairo. He was an older brother to Izzy (Yitzhak), Erela (Arlette), Esther (Etti) and Leah (Lulu).

At the age of six, his family joined the wave of illegal immigration to Israel. They sailed from Egypt to France, and from there, via Brindisi to Israel. After being put up for a long while in a transit camp in near Haifa, at Atlit, the family moved to the Aleph neighborhood of Beer Sheva.

Ablum, nicknamed Barry in his youth, was an impish and agile boy who sought refuge from the rigid and austere upbringing in his parents' home. Freedom, for him, was to be found in the quirky adventures and pranks that he used to pull off with his younger brother, Izzy. He was independent and fearless and he loved to climb and improvise solutions out of the small treasures that nature provided. One day, he and Izzy found a stray donkey in a grove near the neighbourhood. They decided to ride it around, taking side trips and running errands throughout Beersheba. That adventure ended with arrest and a police file for each of them. Ablum knew that the return home would be costly. He protected his younger brother with his body, while Izzy and Erela also tried mightily to keep their older brother from their father's wrath.

At the age of 14, Ablum left home, joined the Be'arot youth movement, and arrived at Kibbutz Be'eri. The group consisted of 40 members, of whom only 10 were girls, and the teachers were Tamar and Menucha. Ablum integrated into the fabric of social life on the kibbutz, and was known for his ability to fix things—from carpentry to plumbing. At any rate, the educational environment on the kibbutz emphasized learning for the purposes of work rather than learning for the sake of knowledge. Ablum fell in love with the kibbutz and accepted fully his new way of life. He distanced himself from the holy books of Jewish tradition and entrusted his mother with his tefillin so that she could return the ritual prayer straps to the synagogue.

The members of Be'erot, Ablum included, enlisted in the airborne battalion of the Nahal Brigade and there he did his military service. During the Yom Kippur War, he was drafted into the reserves at an ordnance base; when he suddenly saw Hezi, a tank crew member, on his way to a unit in the north, Ablum announced he was joining. When he arrived at the unit, they told him he was too old, and Ablum replied: "If you don't accept me, I'll leave here with a tank!" Even the most heroic commander would have been forced to succumb, and Ablum became a gunner in the company commander’s tank. His friends remember his sense of humor, the pranks he pulled on the guys, and no less so, the order and organization that he instilled.

Ablum was one of the few Be’erot members who returned to the kibbutz. During his lifetime he managed to work in an array of posts: in the chicken coop, the firefighting unit, the gardening crew, the dining room, as part of the home economics team, a dairy farmer, an electrician and a builder. For a time, he was also an organizer of the Shabbat and daily work schedules. He manned “the guillotine” at the printing press, and later was on the license printing and card production teams at the press.

In 1968, he met Jean Dressler, a young volunteer from the United States who had come to Be'eri. A year later, they got married, and Shani, Gal and Niv, were born. After separating from Jean, Ablum started a family with Yona Fricker, with whom he had Sigal and Stav. Ablum inculcated in his children, including Aviv, Yona's daughter from her first marriage, a sense of independence and curiosity and a love of nature. The man who grew up in a harsh and hard reality showered his children with love.

In December 1996, Niv was killed in a tragic accident at the tender age of 14. The tragedy deeply shook the entire family. Seized by longing, Ablum planted cyclamens in the grove of Be'eri’s cemetery, and would collect the seeds and germinate them in small pots, distributing them to members of the kibbutz. Many cyclamens still bloom in the members' gardens and around the kibbutz.

Ablum nurtured the house and also built a basement on his own that continually expanded and became his private paradise. He loved his garden and his special collection of cacti, and invited everyone to watch the Queen of the Night cactus bloom one night each year. Ablum maintained an enviable routine of listening to music, watching movies, sports and heading out on forays into nature. He loved sitting on the balcony, listening on his famous radio to traditional Israeli songs, especially Yehoram Gaon, and to the Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum. He loved traveling around Israel and to places farther afield. He especially loved going to Sinai, and was like a family member to some of the Bedouin families in Tarabin. After Niv's death, he spent many a day in a tent on the Lighthouse Beach in Eilat. There he would dive, rest, recharge his batteries. Among family and friends, a new tradition was born: pilgrimages to go see Ablum in his tent.

Ablum was colorblind. And so he surprised all with some rather unusual combinations: the house was painted yellow-and-blue, and the colors of his flowing trousers and bright hats were often a sight to behold. His taste buds, too, were unique: he added hot pepper to every meal. He always drank his coffee with cardamom and no sugar, because a good Egyptian does not sweeten coffee. He liked to dole out to his neighbours choice prickly pears and figs that he picked in orchards scattered among the distant fields. He taught his son Gal to cure olives, and the two won prizes in a series of local competitions.

In November 2022, after contending with a serious illness, Gal passed away. Parting from his beloved son was unbearable to Ablum, though even in the face of this tragedy, he found solace in small joys: the quality time he spent with his grandchildren and daughters.

He was a hardworking and humble do-it-yourself man, who loved the kibbutz with all his heart and wanted to build a home for his children, a better home than he himself had.

He was murdered in his home, on the Black Saturday of October 7, 2023. In his safe room, on the pillow, was found a Book of Psalms.

May his memory be a blessing.