1 ISRAEL I After 12 Years at Hunters Square, Mikva'ot We've Lost Our Lease We Must Sell Out All Continued from preceding page INVENTORY TO THE DARE WALLS (Including Store Fixtures) 20 % -70 % OFF ALL MERCHANDISE Comforters, Bedspreads, Rugs, Bathroom Accessories, Wall Hardware, Towels, Sheets, Pillows, Shower Curtains, Toilet Seats, Etc. DON'T MISS THIS EVENT. ONCE IN A LIFETIME Fieldcrest, Martex, Springmaid, Crocill, Dakota, Wamsutta, Revman, Regal Rug, Stylebuilt accessories SEVENTH HEAVEN Hunters Square Orchard Lake Rd. at 14 Mile 855-3777 Hours: Mon.-Sat. 10-6 Thurs. 10-8, Sun. 12-5 Yaakov. Spherical in design, they are constructed as two- story pre-fabs and are com- prised of two mikvah pools in adjoining facilities off narrow hallways. Rebbitzen Matilda Brand, head supervisor of Jerusalem's mikva'ot, at- tributes wide attendance at her facilities in Jerusalem to the high standards maintain- ed. Both she and Yehiel Kirshenbaum, director of Mikva'ot for the Religious Council of Jerusalem, aspire to a kind of state of the art in the standards they are establishing. Mr. Kirshen- baum's technical improve- ments include centralizing the laundering of newly bought mikvah towels on a quality scale and subcontrac- ting supervision of the chemical hygiene of each mikvah pool to a sophisti- cated laboratory that tests its cleanliness. One aspect of the services provided at the mikvah can- not be assigned a money value. Women attending the mikva'ot are not merely in a physical state of preparation for resumption of marital relations. The staff manning these facilities are often call- ed upon to share confidences, if not to provide actual sup- portive counseling to any number of the capital's female population. The pride these "mikvah women" take in being gracious, caring "hostesses" reflects, in good share, on the growing popula- rity of this ancient custom. ❑ WZPS Kibbutzim Today Face Different Crises AVA CARMEL DR. SCOTT A. TRAGER WELCOMES RUSSIAN-SPEAKING BRONISLAVA SMOLKIN TO THE OFFICE STAFF. • Medical Treatment for the Foot & Ankle • Diabetic Foot Care • Foot Care for the Elderly • Office & Hospital Surgery Available • Transportation Available `• Most Insurance Plans Accepted PARKSIDE FOOT CARE 15622 West 10 Mile (1 Blk. West of Greenfield) 443-0027 RELIABLE AND EXPERIENCED SINCE 1930 insurance estimates accepted expert color match, foreign & American TOWING & RENTAL CARS AVAILABLE La Salle Body Shop Inc. 28829 Orchard Lake Road, Farmington Hills, MI 48334 BETWEEN 12 & 13 Mile Rd. MAX FLEISCHER, FOUNDER 72 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1991 553-7111 Special to The Jewish News R eminiscing about the communal way of life on Kibbutz Ma'ayan Zvi 50 years ago, David Raban recalls wistfully, "Everything was shared. When the first member got his own private electric kettle — what a commotion everyone made! And the first private radio! A few years ago a member received a VCR as a gift. Even then people made a fuss. Why get so excited? I said. Soon everyone will have a video. And that's exactly what happened." Ma'ayan Zvi, an established kibbutz south of Haifa, per- sonifies the dilemma of the kibbutzim today. With its modern dining hall, swimm- ing pool and broad lawns it looks more like an affluent country club than a pioneer- ing settlement. Located on the Carmel Mountain range, overlooking the aqua Mediterranean Sea, it overlooks the fertile coastal plain and the kibbutz fields, orchards and fishponds. In ad- dition to a commercial garage, Ma'ayan Zvi also runs "Scopus Optical Industry," which produces plastic lenses, periscopes and night sites for rifles. Yet Ma'ayan Zvi, like many kibbutzim, is deeply in debt and in the midst of an ideological crisis. Of its 400 members, more than 100 are on pension and many fear that members are beginning to abandon the sacred ideals on which the kibbutz was founded. Kibbutz children at play. David Raban's soft-spoken wife Ruth looks back on these years with bittersweet memories. "We were spoiled children from Europe," she says. "We knew we couldn't build a country on intellec- tual work, so we based ourselves on agriculture, on hard physical labor." For many years, income from agriculture, the kib- butz's sole source of income, was highly lucrative. Profits had a direct relation to hard work and bookkeeping was relatively simple, with deci- sions such as whether or not to buy a new tractor being made in the weekly members' meetings. But in the 1970s many kibbutzim invested heavily in high-tech in- dustries, managing them the same way they ran their agricultural branches. Com- peting in the world market, where currency rates fluc- tuate and cheap products from the Far East abound, the kibbutz's problems began. Hired labor also was taboo, so the kibbutzniks had to man their own industry, from management down to assembly-line workers, with kibbutz members largely ig- norant of the art of running a high-tech industry. In the 1970s and '80s,