ALL THE BEST NAMES NOW AT THE Bendersky said of the kib- butzniks. "They've helped us through the maze of the bureaucracy. They've ob- tained precious information for us. Being here has even helped us master Hebrew more quickly because we've been part of a Hebrew- speaking society from the start." Still, Luba and Oleg have no intention of staying on once they've found jobs. "I suppose it's a matter of taste," she said. "The people here have been wonderful to us, but Hatzerim is like one big family, and we really want to remain a small fami- ly, by ourselves." Mr. Bendersky even wor- ries that their soft-landing on the kibbutz may work against them in the long run, by having denied them the "street smarts" needed for life in the big city. Still, they can certainly understand why others might want to stay: some for lack of opportunities, others because they like kibbutz life. A lack of choice is certain- ly not the reason why Mark and Tanya Rothstein have chosen to remain on Kibbutz Ein Hashofet, in the rolling Hills of Menashe on the southern Carmel Range. Mark, a 27-year-old doctor, works in a hospital in the nearby city of Hadera. Tanya, 22, who has also studied medicine, has now switched to biology at Haifa University and will be teaching in the kibbutz school. Their arrival at Ein Hasofet was a fluke. When they were approached by a scout at the Tel Aviv hotel to which they were taken directly from the airport upon their arrival in Israel, they had no notion of what kibbutz life was like. "But we didn't know anyone in the country," Mr. Rothstein explained, "and we really had nowhere to go, so we weren't resistant to the idea." Today, almost a year later, they're still at Ein Hashofet because they like it there. "People are much warmer here than they are in the city," Mr. Rothstein said. Besides, he added, he and Tanya are in something of a unique situation. "If there are negative sides to life here, we spend so much time outside the kib- butz that we don't feel them," he said. Igor and Julia Schiffrin, technicians in their 20s from Dnepropetrovsk in the Ukraine, arrived in Ein Hashofet under similar cir- cumstances, but with grave misgivings. "We didn't know very much about kibbutz life," said Mr. Schiffrin. "But the little we did know made us fear that we would be separated from our 6-year- old daughter." (In the original kibbutz format, youngsters slept in special children's houses. But on Ein Hashofet, like most other kibbutzim today, chil- dren now live with their parents.) Now, the Schiffrins are in- terested in staying simply because they feel at home. In fact, they scoff at the idea that Soviet immigrants would be particularly resis- tant to a collective lifestyle. "This way of life is not natural for people who come from the United States," Mrs. Schiffrin pointed out, "but we came from a so- cialist country. So for us it's natural." In fact, both report that they feel closer to the friends they've made at work and to the parents of children in their daughter's class than to the other Russian families living around them. Four of the 11 immigrant families who have lived at Ein Hashofet during the past year are considering remaining for good. But cer- tainly not, like in the old days, out of any ideological commitment. "Most people don't think in such terms," Mark Roths- tein remarked. "They're simply being practical. The kibbutz is beautiful, with its trees and fresh air. And it's marvelous for children." "The Soviet immigrants don't know beans about kib- butz ideology, just as they know almost nothing about Zionist ideology and precious little about Judaism," said Ein Hashofet's liaison with the newcomers, Hanan Cohen. Mr. Cohen can certainly identify with that. An ex- New Yorker, he himself came to Israel some 30 years ago not out of ideological commitment, but as a tourist. He stayed because he liked what he found. (To- day he's on the Jewish Agency's Board of Gover- nors.) The Russians will stay, he believes, not just because the kibbutz solves many of their practical problems but be- cause it offers them things on which they put a premium: a high level of ed- ucation for their children and a high level of culture for themselves. GUARANTEED BEST PRICES.' Laura Biagiotti GUCCI FE RE WNErr GIORGIO ARMA\1 Beau Monde F IRARI POLICE Christian Dior TAX I NEOSTYLE® SAVE $25 WITH THIS COUPON $2 5 O F F OUR ALREADY LOW SALE PRICES! This coupon is good for $25 OFF your choice of glasses (lenses and frames) or prescription sunglasses (lenses and frames). Offer good at Spec•tique West Bloomfield and Southfield only. Prior orders, V.S.P. and other discoUnt programs excluded. One coupon per patient. 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