Masada: Between the shadows of yesteryear – to the heartbeat of today

There is something about childhood memory that blurs the sharp edges of reality. For the girl who grew up in Haifa, Masada Street was not a cultural concept or a nightlife hotspot. It was an endless playground, a space where every entrance to a building told a fairy tale and every grocery store was a little kingdom.

In those days, childhood in Masada was painted in the colors of "togetherness." It was a street of neighbors who knew everything about each other, about the laundry hanging on the porch, about the songs that emanated from the radio in the afternoon, and about the sounds of the sidewalks that told of the hard work of their parents' generation. The buildings presented modest but reliable architecture, one that didn't necessarily try to impress, but simply to contain. When I was a child, the distance between the house and the street was zero. The language was old-fashioned Hebrew, mixed with the aromas of cooking that crossed the windows. Masada Street was the big backyard of all of us, and foreign languages ​​peeked out from between the folds of memory.

Today, as I walk down the street, the contrast strikes the senses. The place has undergone a metamorphosis. No longer a quiet residential area filled with small grocery stores, but cafes, second-hand shops and bars that attract a young crowd, both Jewish and Arab.

The stone remained the same, but the spirit changed. The silence of that time gave way to the noise of cars and motorcycles, and the old neighborhood, which was based on close acquaintance, was replaced by a diverse community that refuses to become its own museum. Like the street.

When compared, it's hard not to feel the subtle irony. We tend to look for our childhoods in bricks and walls, but Masada Street reminds us that memory is, in fact, mental real estate. The girl who once ran there, and played with rope and chalk on the sidewalk, may not recognize today's neon, but if you listen carefully, you can hear the same echoes of life.

Today's Masada may be "hipster," and trendy, and in some ways more polished, but it still possesses that Haifa tenacity, the ability to change without losing its soul.

And amidst the changing scenery of Masada Street stood the Remez School. I attended it until the eighth grade, and it was, for me, not just a rectangular structure of classrooms and chalkboards, but the good "heart" of the street.

The memory suggests the memory of the noise of recesses that merged with the noise outside, of a hierarchy of teachers and walls that absorbed all the changes I went through until I was 14. And today, when I pass by the building, I try to look for the shadows of that time. Perhaps the Remez School remains a cornerstone, while the world around it, the shops that were there, the people I knew, the scents, all of these have changed beyond recognition. The Remez School, nicknamed "Beit Sefer Masada," remains an anchor of stability in a street that experiences change on a daily basis.

It is impossible to talk about the "Remez" school in Masada's childhood memories without bringing up the figure of the principal, Blaha LipshitzIn the collective memory of the neighborhood, it was not just an administrative authority; it was our moral and social compass.

Admiration from teachers and students alike is no small thing, certainly not in the Haifa of old, where teachers and principals were seen as figures who shaped fates. Blaha Lifshitz instilled in us the feeling that school was not just a stopover on the road to life, but a home itself. The way she ran the institution, the combination of determination, wisdom, and deep human sensitivity, all of which made her a symbol. When she walked through the school hallways, it seemed like the entire street was aligning to her rhythm. For us, the students, her image was the promise that there was someone who saw us, who listened to us, who led this ship safely.

Today, when I look at the changes that Masada Street has undergone, I sometimes wonder what Bilha Lifshitz would say about the contemporary "Masada." She, who believed in education in values, in community, and in intergenerational connections, would surely have found a way to bridge this gap as well.

A scarred family story is also associated with the name of Blaha Lipshitz. Life, as it sometimes knows how to do with unspeakable cruelty, has slapped the harshest national reality on her story.

Son, Encourage Lifshitz, a man of spirit, a member of Kibbutz Nir Oz, a man of peace, a man who embodied the values ​​of this country, was kidnapped on October 7 and murdered a month later. This news also changes the way I look at the "Remez" school today. When I think of Oded, the intellectual who was amputated, I also think of Balaha and the inconceivable contrast between the education and life she gave us, and the death that overtook her son in the bitter reality of today.

I carry within me the double memory: the memory of the innocent street of yesteryear, and the memory of the fracture of today. Blaha Lifshitz taught us what humanity is, and Oded her son fell victim to those who sought to destroy it. The fact that these names are intertwined in the story of our lives obliges us to continue to hold on to memory, even when it stings, and even when it reminds us that the greatest change that has happened here is the loss of the innocence that surrounded our childhood on Masada Street.