Ofra Keidar

Ofra was born to Penina and Dovale Gitel, Ofra was their middle child, a sister to Hana and Ilan. Her parents were among the original members of Kibbutz Kedma, which is where Ofra grew up in the first years of her life. In 1962, when Kibbutz Kedma disbanded, the family joined a group of friends and together they moved to Be'eri. In their honor, Be'eri veterans gave up their new duplexes. Dovale and Penina received a room on the second floor above the Efrat family.

They arrived during summer vacation. Ofra, Hadas, and Ada, who were finishing third grade, joined “Kitat Shibolim”. Ofra had a hard time coming to terms with the move, especially with being separated from her best friend, who had moved to another kibbutz. It took a long time before Ofra began to feel at home and join the local community of youngsters. She proved to be very athletic, especially excelling in any games that used balls. In dodgeball, her delivery was exceptionally strong and accurate, and the children of Shibolim learned to be careful when Ofra played. They would even warn her not to hurt their stomachs!

She was a good girl who took every project seriously. She participated in the customary class plays that regularly took place as a part of the local education, and even then, she showed a rare responsibility and diligence among the youth. As a girl, her big dream was to skydive, so she volunteered to be a parachute folder for the paratroopers. She did this with characteristic precision and efficiency, and also got to parachute from a plane several times.

As many Israelis did after the army, as a third year of service she went to help at the newly established Kibbutz Elrom. There she met Sammy. After one year of courtship, the young couple moved to Tel Aviv. Before another year passed, Ofra informed Sammy that they were going to return to Kibbutz Be’eri. There, Ofra started working in the dairy, and Sammy joined the blacksmith shop. Their wedding was held in the spirit of those days. It was a kibbutz style wedding of 5 couples together. Their son Elad was born in 1978, followed by Oran and Yael.

Despite her restraint from expressing physical affection, Ofra was a devoted mother. Her great loves were clear to anyone who visited her home: animals and agriculture. There were always dogs in the house. She mainly kept poodles which occasionally participated in dog shows. Ofra tended the garden and loved pots and flowers very much. She cherished beauty, making sure the house was comfortable and pleasant, and did not hesitate to buy things she liked. She didn't like to cook but she would make excellent pastries, without even needing to use recipes. She would always eat quickly because she needed to get back to doing something useful.

Ofra worked in the dairy for about 30 consecutive years. She was responsible for taking care of the newborn calves and feeding them with milk. At first, she gave them colostrum and then she would prepare bottles of milk from powder. She had extraordinary physical strength and, like her father Dovale, she never asked for help. In general, her work embodied the qualities she inherited from Dovale and Penina; she was a quiet and efficient worker, who never uttered unnecessary words. She also exhibited diligence, accuracy, cleanliness, and order which were so basic to them that there would have been no need to mention them. Most importantly, she would never fuss about small matters. If there was a need to do something, it was done. She believed that everything either was fine or would be fine. This attitude helped her to move on. She was a working woman and an old-fashioned kibbutznik.

When the dairy moved to the edge of the kibbutz, Ofra made a brief attempt to go back and forth with carts, but it was no longer the same. Ofra returned to her old love, working at the children's farm, a local little corner filled with life. She worked there for 15 years and, even when she reached retirement age, she never slowed down. She would do hard physical labor, managing every detail of the maintenance and operation of the farm. There was no task too large or too small for her to handle. She was responsible for ordering the food for the animals and, just like with the calves, she would come every Saturday morning to make sure that the shift workers arrived and that everything was in order. Always in a hurry to work, she was always practical, which led her to never be enthusiastic about taking time off to study, though she happily participated in field trips. Ofra eventually took in Shmil to work with her, promising him that she would stay with him until he retired. Shmil discovered that behind the faҫade of tough armor, she was like a mother to him.

When the children grew up, Ofra established a regular routine: in the summer, she would leave at five in the morning in order to get to work on time; she would go to the pool a little before it opened to get the lane she liked and swim 60 laps; and then return to work. After her lunch break, she would watch tennis or NBA games on TV, solve crossword puzzles, or pick up the young grandchildren from kindergarten, and spend time with them in the playground, in the animal farm, or go out to the fields to watch the potatoes and carrots get picked. Always on foot, without a scooter, she felt like she always had to move so as not to be lazy.

Her days sometimes included tennis and gymnastics classes, or a daily visit to the shopping mall, where she sometimes bought new sports clothes. On Fridays and Saturdays, she went on her traditional walk, alone or with friends, listening to radio 88FM with oldies from abroad (Ofra especially loved Elvis Presley and Paul Anka). She often laughed when telling people about changes in nature that no one except her noticed, for instance, a new family of foxes, or the sowing of chickpeas in a distant field.

Her weekends were dedicated to her daughter Yael. After her morning walk and making a fruit salad, she went out again with Yael for a walk around the kibbutz. They sat leisurely to eat lunch, updating each other as they sat in the dining room. Those were her quiet family Shabbats. Ofra loved the blessed routine of her life: work, sports, music, garden, home, family, kibbutz. She stayed away from entertainment and travel, living life as it is, without unnecessary claims.

Until her last Saturday.

As usual, Ofra went for a walk at five in the morning. It was still dark outside, which didn’t bother her because there was nothing she would have thought to be afraid of. Near Nakhbir, in her favorite fields, she met terrorists. Yael waited at home and many hours passed before she was evacuated. It was only after two months that we learned of Ofra’s fate. She was 70 years-old at the time of the murder.

May her memory be a blessing.