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In Rehovot We Trust
W The cast: Dudu (31), Orna (30), Yael (2 months) and Luca (mixed terrier, quite jumpy, 5).
W The home: Apartment building, beige stucco exterior, second floor, "elevator next year," 111 square meters, with living room plus four other rooms, "on the Katzir side" of town.
W The Katzir side: There are two high schools in Rehovot: Katzir and De Shalit. The latter is considered prestigious; the former has its own pride. Orna: "And that will probably be Yael's fate."
W Real estate history: They moved here about a year ago, with financing from the parents ($160,000).
W Design: A longish corridor leads to the living room, which starts with a dining table (from Bilu Junction Center), continues with two sofas in light upholstery (from South Tel Aviv) and ends with white-orange silk curtains (from Hayarkonim Junction). The television table and the bookcase (Thomas Mann, "Harry Potter") are from IKEA ("which we generally try to avoid"), and they brought the small tables with the carvings from India. On the walls are a Klimt reproduction, an ancient map of Italy and a German engraving, an heirloom from Grandmother (Oranit: "Mother said that if there is a fire I should escape with the engraving"). On to the rooms.
W The rooms: In Yael's toy-filled room is a painting of a koala bear (done by Orna); hanging in the master bedroom is the famous painting of Venus (by Botticelli); and in the study are certificates stating that Dudu has a Dan 2 black belt in meijin kai, a combination of Thai boxing and jiu-jitsu. There is also a fourth room, for shiatsu, in which Orna offers low-intensity treatments and where her girlfriend (Shiri) is sleeping these days. Heading back to the living room, we are impressed by two recurring elements: clocks and scales ("We collect them"). One of the clocks is from Lexington Station in London (or at least it is in the same style); one of the scales is from a market in Krakow (brought by Dudu's late father when he immigrated to Israel). We sit. On the small table is a fruit salad in an "ice bowl" that slowly melts.
W Ice bowl: Dudu freezes two earthenware bowls, one inside the other, separated by a layer of water. (He also immerses flowers in ice, for beauty.)
W Occupations: Dr. Orna Shtatter, who has just become a physician, is mainly breast-feeding ("Now only seven times a day"), and her daily routine depends on Yael. When Yael wakes up, they both wake up; when Yael sleeps, they both sleep. In the morning they go to the mall or meet with girlfriends. Orna completed her studies three months ago, after attending the medical school at Hadassah University Hospital in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, and then doing a year of interning at Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot. In January she will begin specializing in family medicine in Rehovot's Sha'arayim neighborhood.
W Family medicine: "It suits me," she says. "You talk to people."
W Dudu's livelihood: A high-tech man, he is head of the algorithms team at Transparency Software, an American startup which, according to its Web site, develops "information policy management solutions for security, auditing and compliance" ("We are their India"). He works nine ("flexible") hours a day and a five-day week, and is in charge of two employees ("including me"). He is not sure whether he will stay in this line of work; with a master's degree in mathematics and computer sciences (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), he is thinking about other directions. Teaching attracts him, and he might give courses that prepare would-be university students for the psychometric test (he has taught such courses in the past) or maybe do a Ph.D. at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot (which he once started and then stopped). In any event, he says, money is not everything in life. He travels to work by train or in the family Fiat Punto.
W Other occupations: Dudu works out three-four times a week in a martial art that prepares him mainly for street fights ("I might intervene, but it's not worth it"). In the past he competed in Pankration (an ancient Greek form of hand-to-hand combat) and reached second place in the world (among 10 contestants). He also specializes in making croissants, yeast cakes, sushi, home-made ice cream and "sabrina" pastries (like eclairs).
W Sabrinas: "I am giving new life to the cake of the 1970s." (Indeed!)
W Dudu's bio: Dudu was born in Rehovot in 1976 to parents from Poland and Ukraine, who immigrated to Israel in the 1950s. His mother is a retired guidance counselor; his father, who died in 2000, was an engineer. Dudu attended Katzir High School, did his military service as a combat medic ("The army left no imprint on me"), backpacked briefly in Thailand, was admitted to the school of dentistry at the Hebrew University (psychometric score: 784), did a year, switched to regular medicine and left that for mathematics.
W Mathematics: "More interesting." After getting his double master's degrees he married (Orna), began a Ph.D. at the Weizmann Institute, left ("I couldn't get myself to enjoy it") and entered high-tech (2005). Since then he has been there, contemplating his next move.
W Silicon Valley: "A possibility." Orna: "I prefer Sha'arayim."
W Orna's bio: Born in Kfar Sava in 1977. Her mother is a retired teacher, her father an electronics engineer, and both of them are Haifa-born, the offspring of German Jews, who immigrated to Palestine in the 1930s ("Real yekkes"). In high school she majored in physics and theater, with an average of 110 in her matriculation. She was the chairperson of the municipal youth council ("I organized the Purim events on the pedestrian mall"), did her army service as the commander of a course for recruitment evaluators ("The personal interview plays a part in determining the soldier's mental/intellectual profile"). After her service she was admitted to medical school, lived in the dorms and in various rented apartments, took off for India in the middle of it all (with girlfriends) and completed the whole thing this June ("a week after the birth").
W The meeting: They initially met in medical school in 1998 as first-year students, but were not overly impressed with each other ("I said hello to him on students' day"). In 2001, when he was close to completing his first degree (in mathematics) and she was at the end of fourth year (in med school), they happened to attend the wedding of a mutual friend in Yahud. He ("to my great embarrassment") did not remember her name ("I thought it was Oranit"), but that did not stop him from asking for her phone number. It was Rosh Hashanah, and she went to the Beresheet Festival; he called during the holiday and she was happy to get the call and went to see him in Rehovot at his parents' place ("I trusted him, and maybe I didn't want him to come to my place"). Whatever the case, they dated four years, including trips to Laos and India. He proposed in the autumn of 2004 in a cave in the Galilee, while down on one knee, and cut the words "Marry me" into a tree.
W The wedding: Petah Tikva, 2005, at Grandpa's Well (a banquet garden). Orna wore white and pink, Dudu white and beige. Orna chose the song that was played as they walked to the wedding canopy ("Total Eclipse of the Heart"); Dudu shed a tear for his father (who did not live to see the event). They honeymooned in Ireland and spent a night in the ER in Dublin. "That's what happens to a person who doesn't heed his wife's warning not to eat a mayonnaise sandwich that is five days old" (Dudu).
W Daily routine: Yael wakes up between 4 and 5 A.M., and Orna gets up to feed her. Thus begins her erratic day. Dudu gets up around 8, washes, takes Luca out (10 minutes) and makes breakfast for Orna (toast with cheese and avocado). He himself eats nothing. He leaves around 9 ("after the traffic jams") and at about 10 has cornflakes in the office.
W Lunch: Dudu eats in restaurants near where he works in Tel Aviv, Orna eats at home only - only vegetarian and only what Dudu's mother makes (tofu, vegetable pies). In the afternoon the girls go to yoga. Dudu gets home after 7. He does the "showering." When Orna feeds Yael, he goes for a training session.
W TV: Not part of their routine. Not even the news. They watch series they download from the Internet. Orna is fond of "ER" ("One of the reasons I studied medicine was to find someone like George Clooney, and I found Bruce Willis").
W Housecleaning: Anna, once every two weeks (NIS 200); shopping: Dudu.
W Yael: They chose the name because she looked to them "like Yael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, both beautiful and a Ninja."
W Quarreling and making up: They are not into long silences and make up, they say, within an hour at most. "There is the family thing going on here, but let's not get into it here" (Yael); "Everyone feels he is the hurt one and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle" (Dudu).
W Dreams: Dudu - "To teach in academia, or to open a restaurant"; Orna - "A house with a backyard and a clinic that combines conventional medicine with alternative medicine."
W God: Dudu believes, and prays that God will safeguard the family. A mathematician, he says, can be religious. Orna also believes, but in reward and punishment ("There are no accounts in heaven"). Both of them believe in a next life. "In a kind of karma thing," Orna says. A person has to preserve an emotional corner along with a rational side, she adds.
W Alongside the rational: In the living room water gurgles from a small Feng Shui fountain.
W State of Israel: Dudu believes that the corruption and the security situation will make people leave; Orna says things aren't so bad and that "the best thing for Yael is to grow up here."
W Happiness quotient (scale of 1-10): Dudu - 6-9, Orna - 7-8.
Source: Avner and Reli Avrahami. The Shtatters. Haaretz.com (20 September 2007) [FullText]
Also see: Falling in Love With Rehovot. www.MyRehovot.info (1 September 2007) [FullText]
W The home: Apartment building, beige stucco exterior, second floor, "elevator next year," 111 square meters, with living room plus four other rooms, "on the Katzir side" of town.
W The Katzir side: There are two high schools in Rehovot: Katzir and De Shalit. The latter is considered prestigious; the former has its own pride. Orna: "And that will probably be Yael's fate."
W Real estate history: They moved here about a year ago, with financing from the parents ($160,000).
W Design: A longish corridor leads to the living room, which starts with a dining table (from Bilu Junction Center), continues with two sofas in light upholstery (from South Tel Aviv) and ends with white-orange silk curtains (from Hayarkonim Junction). The television table and the bookcase (Thomas Mann, "Harry Potter") are from IKEA ("which we generally try to avoid"), and they brought the small tables with the carvings from India. On the walls are a Klimt reproduction, an ancient map of Italy and a German engraving, an heirloom from Grandmother (Oranit: "Mother said that if there is a fire I should escape with the engraving"). On to the rooms.
W The rooms: In Yael's toy-filled room is a painting of a koala bear (done by Orna); hanging in the master bedroom is the famous painting of Venus (by Botticelli); and in the study are certificates stating that Dudu has a Dan 2 black belt in meijin kai, a combination of Thai boxing and jiu-jitsu. There is also a fourth room, for shiatsu, in which Orna offers low-intensity treatments and where her girlfriend (Shiri) is sleeping these days. Heading back to the living room, we are impressed by two recurring elements: clocks and scales ("We collect them"). One of the clocks is from Lexington Station in London (or at least it is in the same style); one of the scales is from a market in Krakow (brought by Dudu's late father when he immigrated to Israel). We sit. On the small table is a fruit salad in an "ice bowl" that slowly melts.
W Ice bowl: Dudu freezes two earthenware bowls, one inside the other, separated by a layer of water. (He also immerses flowers in ice, for beauty.)
W Occupations: Dr. Orna Shtatter, who has just become a physician, is mainly breast-feeding ("Now only seven times a day"), and her daily routine depends on Yael. When Yael wakes up, they both wake up; when Yael sleeps, they both sleep. In the morning they go to the mall or meet with girlfriends. Orna completed her studies three months ago, after attending the medical school at Hadassah University Hospital in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, and then doing a year of interning at Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot. In January she will begin specializing in family medicine in Rehovot's Sha'arayim neighborhood.
W Family medicine: "It suits me," she says. "You talk to people."
W Dudu's livelihood: A high-tech man, he is head of the algorithms team at Transparency Software, an American startup which, according to its Web site, develops "information policy management solutions for security, auditing and compliance" ("We are their India"). He works nine ("flexible") hours a day and a five-day week, and is in charge of two employees ("including me"). He is not sure whether he will stay in this line of work; with a master's degree in mathematics and computer sciences (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), he is thinking about other directions. Teaching attracts him, and he might give courses that prepare would-be university students for the psychometric test (he has taught such courses in the past) or maybe do a Ph.D. at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot (which he once started and then stopped). In any event, he says, money is not everything in life. He travels to work by train or in the family Fiat Punto.
W Other occupations: Dudu works out three-four times a week in a martial art that prepares him mainly for street fights ("I might intervene, but it's not worth it"). In the past he competed in Pankration (an ancient Greek form of hand-to-hand combat) and reached second place in the world (among 10 contestants). He also specializes in making croissants, yeast cakes, sushi, home-made ice cream and "sabrina" pastries (like eclairs).
W Sabrinas: "I am giving new life to the cake of the 1970s." (Indeed!)
W Dudu's bio: Dudu was born in Rehovot in 1976 to parents from Poland and Ukraine, who immigrated to Israel in the 1950s. His mother is a retired guidance counselor; his father, who died in 2000, was an engineer. Dudu attended Katzir High School, did his military service as a combat medic ("The army left no imprint on me"), backpacked briefly in Thailand, was admitted to the school of dentistry at the Hebrew University (psychometric score: 784), did a year, switched to regular medicine and left that for mathematics.
W Mathematics: "More interesting." After getting his double master's degrees he married (Orna), began a Ph.D. at the Weizmann Institute, left ("I couldn't get myself to enjoy it") and entered high-tech (2005). Since then he has been there, contemplating his next move.
W Silicon Valley: "A possibility." Orna: "I prefer Sha'arayim."
W Orna's bio: Born in Kfar Sava in 1977. Her mother is a retired teacher, her father an electronics engineer, and both of them are Haifa-born, the offspring of German Jews, who immigrated to Palestine in the 1930s ("Real yekkes"). In high school she majored in physics and theater, with an average of 110 in her matriculation. She was the chairperson of the municipal youth council ("I organized the Purim events on the pedestrian mall"), did her army service as the commander of a course for recruitment evaluators ("The personal interview plays a part in determining the soldier's mental/intellectual profile"). After her service she was admitted to medical school, lived in the dorms and in various rented apartments, took off for India in the middle of it all (with girlfriends) and completed the whole thing this June ("a week after the birth").
W The meeting: They initially met in medical school in 1998 as first-year students, but were not overly impressed with each other ("I said hello to him on students' day"). In 2001, when he was close to completing his first degree (in mathematics) and she was at the end of fourth year (in med school), they happened to attend the wedding of a mutual friend in Yahud. He ("to my great embarrassment") did not remember her name ("I thought it was Oranit"), but that did not stop him from asking for her phone number. It was Rosh Hashanah, and she went to the Beresheet Festival; he called during the holiday and she was happy to get the call and went to see him in Rehovot at his parents' place ("I trusted him, and maybe I didn't want him to come to my place"). Whatever the case, they dated four years, including trips to Laos and India. He proposed in the autumn of 2004 in a cave in the Galilee, while down on one knee, and cut the words "Marry me" into a tree.
W The wedding: Petah Tikva, 2005, at Grandpa's Well (a banquet garden). Orna wore white and pink, Dudu white and beige. Orna chose the song that was played as they walked to the wedding canopy ("Total Eclipse of the Heart"); Dudu shed a tear for his father (who did not live to see the event). They honeymooned in Ireland and spent a night in the ER in Dublin. "That's what happens to a person who doesn't heed his wife's warning not to eat a mayonnaise sandwich that is five days old" (Dudu).
W Daily routine: Yael wakes up between 4 and 5 A.M., and Orna gets up to feed her. Thus begins her erratic day. Dudu gets up around 8, washes, takes Luca out (10 minutes) and makes breakfast for Orna (toast with cheese and avocado). He himself eats nothing. He leaves around 9 ("after the traffic jams") and at about 10 has cornflakes in the office.
W Lunch: Dudu eats in restaurants near where he works in Tel Aviv, Orna eats at home only - only vegetarian and only what Dudu's mother makes (tofu, vegetable pies). In the afternoon the girls go to yoga. Dudu gets home after 7. He does the "showering." When Orna feeds Yael, he goes for a training session.
W TV: Not part of their routine. Not even the news. They watch series they download from the Internet. Orna is fond of "ER" ("One of the reasons I studied medicine was to find someone like George Clooney, and I found Bruce Willis").
W Housecleaning: Anna, once every two weeks (NIS 200); shopping: Dudu.
W Yael: They chose the name because she looked to them "like Yael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, both beautiful and a Ninja."
W Quarreling and making up: They are not into long silences and make up, they say, within an hour at most. "There is the family thing going on here, but let's not get into it here" (Yael); "Everyone feels he is the hurt one and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle" (Dudu).
W Dreams: Dudu - "To teach in academia, or to open a restaurant"; Orna - "A house with a backyard and a clinic that combines conventional medicine with alternative medicine."
W God: Dudu believes, and prays that God will safeguard the family. A mathematician, he says, can be religious. Orna also believes, but in reward and punishment ("There are no accounts in heaven"). Both of them believe in a next life. "In a kind of karma thing," Orna says. A person has to preserve an emotional corner along with a rational side, she adds.
W Alongside the rational: In the living room water gurgles from a small Feng Shui fountain.
W State of Israel: Dudu believes that the corruption and the security situation will make people leave; Orna says things aren't so bad and that "the best thing for Yael is to grow up here."
W Happiness quotient (scale of 1-10): Dudu - 6-9, Orna - 7-8.
Source: Avner and Reli Avrahami. The Shtatters. Haaretz.com (20 September 2007) [FullText]
Also see: Falling in Love With Rehovot. www.MyRehovot.info (1 September 2007) [FullText]
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