Sara Schifeldrin and Rywa Yavnai

These are my sisters - Sara Schifeldrin, nee Weinryb (on the right) and Rywa Yavnai, nee Weinryb (on the left). The photo was taken in Zamosc in the 1920s. My two younger sisters, Sara and Rywa, had similar lives. They both emigrated to Palestine in the 1920s. They were members of Hashomer Hatzair. They did hakhsharah in Zamosc. There was an agronomist there who had both a vegetable garden and large orchards, and was educated in hakhsharah, and he taught the Hashomer how to work the land. Rywa was born in 1906. She completed six classes of the grammar school in Zamosc and was the first member of our family to emigrate to Palestine. That was about 1925. At first she worked on a private farm that belonged to some Arabs. They lived in spartan conditions there. Malaria was rife. They didn't have houses, just shacks. Only later did they manage to form kibbutzim. Rywa went to live in the kibbutz Ein Harod. My sister had a fiancé, as I suppose you could call him, back in Zamosc. His name was Szalom Luksemburg. He was preparing to emigrate, too, but kept putting it off, and in the end she left without him. She met her future husband in Palestine. His name was Josif Yavnai and he came from Lithuania. He had been called Slept, but when he arrived in Palestine he changed his name to a Hebrew one. He was very well read and at the same time hardworking. I remember that I used to send him books from Poland. In fact, I have to say that both my brothers-in-law were very decent people. In time Rywa and Josif became independent. They started off by breeding chickens, then they went into orchard cultivation, and eventually they bred cows. That improved their material situation immensely. They left the kibbutz and went to live in a place called Kfar Vitkin. Sara was two years older than Rywa; she was born in 1904. She studied pedagogy and worked in orphanages in Kobryn, later near Bydgoszcz, and after that somewhere near Lodz. She left for Palestine a little later, towards the end of the 1920s. Like Rywa, Sara didn't get married until she moved to Palestine. Her husband was called Josif as well, Josif Schifeldrin - he came from Germany. They lived in a kibbutz, Kvuzat Shiller, near Rehovot. Sara was there for 70 years. In the kibbutz she worked taking care of children. They were quite successful, they had their own house with flowers all around it. At first everyone in the kibbutz worked in agriculture. Later they opened a rubber factory, which prospered fairly well. They manufactured goods for export and even sold some of their products to Arab countries, but without any indication of the country of origin, of course.