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This is me in the Bet Alfa kibbutz in the 1920s. I was born on 28th May 1928 in Ain Harod, a town near Bet Alfa, where there was a maternity ward. I spent the first two years of my life in the Bet Alfa kibbutz. The first language they began teaching me was undoubtedly Ivrit, but I don't remember a thing of it. I actually don't remember anything from the entire period of my life that I spent at the kibbutz in Palestine. We left when I was two years old. Why, that I don't know. It's possible that my parents had health problems due to the climate there, and so they decided to return to Czechoslovakia. It's almost certain, though, that at the time I was born they weren't considering returning yet - otherwise they'd scarcely have given me the name that they did - Asaf.
Actually, my only memory that is somehow connected to Palestine is my impression of a boat trip. I don't know whether I made it up, and somehow created it in my memory after the fact, but it's fairly likely that after such an endless wasteland that existed there, a child would be captivated by water, the sea. So I've got this impression that in my head I've got a memory of how we're standing on a ship and we're going somewhere.
