My dad grew up on a kibbutz where children were raised in what was then called theCommon Education System, a system that promotes the need of the group, rather than the need of the individual.One of the many rules that made this society unique, was that materialistic items must be shared with the community, rather than be kept by the individual.Birthday parties, for example, were organized by the day-care people and the teachers, and celebrated in the classroom with the other children, but never with the parents.After begging my grandfather for years to get him a soccer ball so that he could play with his friends, something that would have made him a hero instantaneously, my father got his first and, as it turned out, only birthday gift: an official soccer ball. Excited beyond words, my father ran to the field where his friends were playing soccer with an old, deformed and under-inflated ball.They played with my father’s 'birthday gift’ ball for about two weeks and then, one day, it all ended.
One day, while playing on a patch of grass between few houses, the ball rolled over a small garden of roses. Angry with the kids for kicking the ball over to the garden, Josef, who was at the time responsible for the kibbutz lawn, ran after the ball and took it. The kids yelled for him to kick it back but he did quite the opposite. He got a knife and cut the soccer ball in half. He yelled that he did so in order to prevent the kids from ruining his garden.
It was clear, even to the children, that Josef was as they said meshuga, or crazy. He was a holocaust survivor.The Germans killed his parents when he was young and he was then sent by Stalin to a working camp in Siberia where his suffering only grew worse.As a grown up, Josef exhibited uncontrollable rage attacks, one of which ended my father’s first and only birthday present of his childhood.