The Jewish settlement in the coastal plain, stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the mountains, began in the l920s. Since the beginning of ancient history the plain had served as a convenient invasion strip, a battle ground for various conquerors and inhabitants.

But the Jewish settlers who came from Eastern and Western Europe did not resort to the ancient historical method of settling the plains. The Jews who never ceased to dream about the return to Zion came over in waves of Aliyot, settling on land bought from the owners - though not always residents - of this particular area. One American group bought a piece of land from an Arab owner who had never even visited his land. They settled and called the place Ra’a’nana. Very rapidly along the narrow road more and more settlements appeared: small red-roofed houses, with the farm behind the house, two cows, and a chicken coop. It was a small village, barely surviving economically, but determined to hold on and never let go. Many similar small villages soon appeared, seemingly alike to any visitor. But the inhabitants, especially their children, knew exactly where one village ended and the other began: the cypress grove divided them. Along the south-easterly road to the district’s capital, Petach Tikva, Dutch immigrants were settling, showing their systematic, organized character in the tidy houses they built. All this land belonged to the Abu-Kishek clan, who sold it to the national fund (Kerenhakayemet), as can be seen in the official estate Registry office. So it happened that in the midst of the Jewish villages, almost in the middle, one could see the tents and low houses of the clan, which maintained a long and profitable relationship with the settlers in the Sharon valley.

     Touffic Abu-kishek was my age.  We met when our parents negotiated the sale sale of a piece of land for an orchard.  The adults sat on the shaded terrace, drinking coffee, and negotiating business.  The children played downstairs.  When the time came to leave Touffic and I parted, knowing that we are destined to meet again.  It took two years for the negotiations to come to a conclusion, the land was sold and bought, and the work started to prepare the land for plantation.  The orchard was to be my family’s main source of income.  

When Touffic was 20, he was sent to Lebanon and then Europe to acquire education..  I never saw him again until after the war. We met. I a young officer in the Israeli Army, he a qualified doctor.  We reminisced some about our boyhood, when we played marbles in the shade below the terrace, and felt no strangers to each other. Enthusiastically I kept the secret of our unique meetings. One  day I got a football for my birthday.  Not just  any football, but the best known brand, a genuine leather football.  I brought it with me on the next visit with my father, and we concocted the idea of a football match between the village boys and the clan boys. Thus the secret became public knowledge and controversial.  The game took place on the land that was still under negotiations.  It is doubtful whether the size was according to Olympic standards, and even more doubtful whether international referees  would accept the goals, into gates that were marked by school bags on one side, and big stones on the other side. Everybody wanted to play and nobody wanted to be a referee.  But the dye was cast, as only one boy knew to whistle loudly through his fingers.  

     The Arab boys played barefoot, and we, without fuss, took off our shoes.  The game began .  It took 5 minutes and it was clear that the Arab team was winning, while many of us lay by the road with bloody feet. We stopped the game, put on our socks and shoes, and scored 4 goals in the next thirty minutes.  There was a feeling in the air that the shoes are sure to win.  The referee thought otherwise. smarting against those who appointed him a whistler rather than a player, he stopped the game. He announced that either the shoed ones take off their shoes, or the bear footed put on shoes, for equality sake.  The Arab team went to their abodes, and within 15 minutes the game resumed with everybody shoed.  The Arab team won the day, being older and more experienced.  It is possible that this defeat brought at least one football team from the area to head the chart. 

As the secret was out, the friendship between the two boys grew, and spread and more boys on both sides began meeting.  Touffic and I kept our uniqueness as there was an economic tie between the families.  Touffic liked to come over and sit under the shade of the shed my grandfather built to store the building materials he was dealing in. small pieces of wood served us as blocks to build small palaces and imaginary out buildings.  

    My mother looked in wonder at the strange friendship flourishing in front of her. She didn’t find it necessary to interfere.  It was only one more wonder, added to the surprises she encountered since she came to settle in the Sharon  She simply added another piece of honey cake she gave me every afternoon.  I used to accompany my grandfather or my father on their occasional visits to the sheik, but sometimes I went on my own everything there was full of magic.  The water pool, the face covered women, the high ceilings, the arched windows, the carpets on the floors, the pillows thrown along the walls, it looked almost holy, so different from our abode, and letting the imagination fly.  

Life went on.  The Abukisheks and other feudal Arabic families sold areas of swamps and sands to the Jews for a lot of money, the latter wanted to build a house and work the land, so badly, that the deals satisfied both sides.

    When I was 12,I was first called to duty.  The synagogue, which was a three story cement building, served as a cover for different tasks.  Not only prayers, births,  funerals and weddings, also served as the Command Post of the area. I was sent from the near by school, to climb up to the roof, onto the canopy  under which was a brass bell, and if I see a mass of Arabs approaching the village boundary, I was to pull the rope and ring the bell.  It is       that none of the youngsters chosen for this duty ever refused  to leave school and climb to the roof.  As the weeks passed and nothing happened, the boys began worrying that this task will be taken away from them, and they’ll have to go back to the routine of school, homework.   My turn came one hot summer day, I swear I did everything as it was told me, the bell started ringing.  And the special task unit of the village took out their old hidden guns and rushed  to their defence posts to meet the enemy.  The only trouble was, that the enemy had small bells around their necks.  The black goats approached the the grass at the end of the village and attacked it, to the eternal shame of the 12 year old boy. Suffice is to say, that not only he but all his classmates were removed from this enviable job. Looking back, it seems strange, that on this very day I went to toufik’s house feeling no different, than on any other visit.  This was already l936.

     In the nights, being too young for any defence duty, the boys were left alone.  They discovered the opposite sex , the youth movement run by excellent guides who complemented the school studies, with wonderful discussions. On such nights the boys got tacit agreement from their parents to staying out late.   There was a girl, with wild red hair, who lived on the other side of the village.  On such nights there would be about four boys who volunteered to see her home, through the orchards that sent out intoxicating smells into the air, providing a background to what is called “eretz israel” something not ever forgotten by anyone experiencing it.  We would walk on the “kool” the marks of cars on sand, and sit down to rest every hundred meters or so, continuing the endless discussions , on subjects long forgotten.  But the nights were cool and pleasant, and there was a girl – a theme of attraction and competition – the sky was bright with stars, and who needed more than that. Except a ripe tomato, juicy and cool, picked up on the way.  The perfect ending to a night like that.

 The two ways were growing up.  I went everyday from the village to the city Tel-Aviv to study in highs school, and toufilk was sent to Lebanon, where some of his family resided.  During the next four years they saw each other only sporadically, as the holidays of the two religions do not correspond, and when meeting there was a feeling of  distance.  Not playing maebles, not swimming in the pool, but still friends.  

    One day the sheik came to visit my grandfather, who offered him, as usual a glass of boiling tea, as the custom of Russia demanded.  When he regained the use of his burnt mouth, the guest said: Noah (he could never pronounce the surname) you and I are bonded friends.  I have always found you to be honest.  Your word is a bond; your promise – an iron bridge, and I can only praise you and thank god that I met you.  There are new winds blowing in the Arab camp, and we, the old sheiks are losing our influence.  The young people are extremists, and assisted by foreign interests, who see only their own advantage, and not the advantage of the region as a whole.  I9 have two things to say to you. One, that you and your family can come and stay with us, and your lot will be with us, I beg you to admit that you can feel that.  I shan’t move until you believe me.  My grandfather agreed, and I, sitting on the wood planks above, thought I saw a tear running down my grandfather’s cheek, though I’m not sure about it. The second thing is no matter what happens between our two people, I solemnly declare, that I and my brothers and my sons will always speak the truth to you and defend you.  I don’t know what the result of this new mood among my people will bring, the extremists may bring disaster on us all.   Today I can say, that in general this family did not appear among the rioters.  Although we were not paying much attention to it, as there were already the rumors of what  had happened to the huge  Jewish communities of Europe, the reservoir of the Jewish people who were to immigrate here and enhance the Jewish community in Palestine.