Tag #135591 - Interview #78023 (Fridric Iavet)

In 1958 we filed again for emigration to Israel. I kept in touch with dad very often by means of letters. Dad kept writing me that life in Israel was very hard: he said that one can still find work there until he is 40, but that after that it is harder, life wasn't that easy. He himself lived in a tent there at first. My father died in 1961 in Tel Aviv. When dad died I recited the kaddish in his memory as well. I received the passport in 1964. We were announced that a person from Securitate [6] had already come to move into our house. But we gave up leaving. I had just signed up to buy a car, a Fiat 8-50, Iudit was 12-13 years old, and Adela was 7, and I asked myself what would I do in Israel, with two children growing up, I had a house, a car...However, I had work colleagues who left for Israel. There were two emigration waves: one in 1951 and one in 1964, when I got my passport. Many from Arad left then. There were approximately 10000 Jews in Arad, now there are only 300, and most of the families are mixed.