Ayala (Aylus) Hetzroni
Ayala was born when Kibbutz Be’eri was young, the first child of Yair and Margalit, two founding members of the kibbutz. She was a baby girl with brown doe eyes, and a shy smile. Afterwards came Nitza, Avia, and Efrat, who grew to become a warm and close-knit family whose roots were planted deeply in the earth of Be’eri.
When Ayala and her friends started school the name of their class was “Arava.” She received the nickname “Aylus” from her classmates, and it stayed with her afterwards. Her friends say she was a shy and quiet girl, who did everything thoroughly and helped without talking much. As was common during those times, she did her bit for local agriculture, in cotton weeding, and picking fruit in the orchard and the groves, but she quickly found her place as a nanny in the children’s home, when she worked for many years. This is where her special talent of forming a connection and a relationship with children of all ages came into play.
She did her IDF service with several kibbutz friends – Dalia and Tzipi – which made adapting to the army much easier. This was the first time that the people from Be’eri met the city folk, who weren’t used to communal showers. Aylus was placed in the IAF and dealt with electronic soldering. Sagi remembers her demonstrating manual soldering, an action that requires fine motor skills, and she was proud of the fact that in the army she used to fix the “spoke of the plane” (in her words) that way.
As was then common, Aylus did a third year of national service at the young Kibbutz Eilot, which was then only 10 years old, and naturally became a nanny at the children’s home, which took her name: Gan Ayala. When she returned to Be’eri, she was a leading nanny in Oranim and Ofarim, and afterwards she worked for years with Yochai in Arazim. She could be seen throughout the kibbutz, pausing with the toddlers at every snail and puddle. She was a special and beloved nanny, who taught the children “to shout in a whisper,” and she continued to educate the mothers years after their children had moved on to other frameworks.
Aylus spent a year in Tel Aviv, where she studied education at Kibbutzim College, and she also travelled for a year to work as an au pair in the United States, but her natural place was in the kibbutz kindergarten. When she returned, she became a leading nanny in Gan Hatzav, in the era of the children’s home.
Ayala was the nanny of the early childhood age groups, and at a certain stage she also agreed to be the kindergarten coordinator. For the Shifronis, her sister Nitza's kids, Aylus was like a second mother, the one they called when they returned from a long journey outside the kibbutz and who they traveled with on the bus to “the big store” in Yad Mordechai to choose birthday presents.
Twenty years ago, she decided to work in the printing press. There she worked in the PAC department – Production Activity Coordination. During this period, it suited her to be in the world of adults and to work efficiently with her characteristic quiet. But then a family tragedy shook her world: Her niece Shira, Avia’s daughter, gave birth to twins – Liel and Yanai – but medical negligence left her brain damaged, and it became clear that she couldn’t care for the children. The whole family joined forces to cope in the long-term: Avia and Eva cared for their daughter Shira, and Ayala took upon herself the raising of the children. Fate transformed Aylus, aged 61, into a full-time mother to infant twins. Nitza called the twins “nechyanim” – a portmanteau of grandchildren and nephews, and Aylus “savdoda,” a combination of grandmother and aunt. Grandpa Avia would sit every afternoon with the scooter, ready for every command. Friends also took turns to help. But Ayala was the central figure in the life of the twins; later she was legally appointed guardian and became “Mama” to Liel and Yanai.
Aylus was an anchor and a beacon to her family, a model of dedication and responsibility, inclusive and giving of herself with love and without complaint. Raising the children was her life’s purpose, with endless patience and with her special love. She also had love for the rest of the family. She was a devoted “savdoda” to Sagi’s family and loved and cared for the children. In every meeting with Aylus the feeling was of endless love and acceptance. She always cared for the family and adjusted herself to each generation; she saved her special laugh for the little ones, and for the parents she was always the one to go to for advice and help. She contributed from her experience, in a good spirit, calmly, with a smile. She pled with the young generation: “Don’t do what I wouldn’t do,” but she also accepted it with understanding when they chose otherwise. Towards her parents, too, her responsibility and patience stood her in good stead, and she supported them with endless devotion.
Alongside this she continued working in the printing press. Aged 70, she transferred to the manual wrapping department and became the right hand of Bosmat. She took responsibility for things that required skilled hands – cutting, sticking, packaging, and, in general, finding simple magical solutions for problems that seemed complicated. In the corridors of the printing press too, the family came first; Aylus would stop Sagi for a hug during every tour, no matter who he was with, and would say “I’m his aunt – and now you can continue.” Meanwhile the children grew, the future seemed calmer, and it was possible to sit for a little while to talk with friends or to go with them to a film workshop at Cinema City in Ramat Hasharon, to arrange flowers for festivals, and to think about renovating her home.
On October 7, Ayala was murdered together with Liel and Yanai. Today they are buried next to Grandpa Avia, who was also murdered that Shabbat.
May her memory be a blessing
