Noemi Guttfreund de Segev: Learning Hebrew

Noemi tells us more about her early years in Israel. All questions in parentheses are mine.

(Did you know Hebrew when you arrived?)

No. Not at all. When I arrived, what I wanted to do was to see what a kibbutz was like. That was very much my dream. It was also that my ideas, my political ideas, were socialist, so I looked for a more leftist type of kibbutz, one that had an ulpan, a place where you learn Hebrew. So I went there for a year, and I really had a great kibbutz. I loved it. I loved working in the fields. I met fantastic people. One of them is even a close friend of mine today, one of my very best friends. Very interesting, serious people.

(So you learned Hebrew—?)

I learned Hebrew there in an intensive type of school. They have programs for three months, where you learn for eight hours. So I learned there. And also having Israeli friends, I practiced my Hebrew.

(So you were there for a year, and then—?)

And then I went to—I came to Jerusalem. I liked Jerusalem. Also—then it became very difficult, when I came to Jerusalem. What happened was that they didn’t accept the studies that I had done in the United States. They told me that if I want to study at Hebrew University, I have to start from the very beginning. So that was a total shock for me, that my two and a half years, almost three years, I just wrote down the drain. I mean, it was a lot of money, it was a lot of effort. I thought at that point, should I go back to the United States and do another year and a half? But I really didn’t have the strength to be doing that. So at that point I decided I’m gonna work. So I worked cleaning houses, I remember, and also in a bookstore. During that year, I made my decision to—yes, I’m gonna start all over again and I’m gonna stay here. But it took me a year to take care of that.

And I think, not being in the kibbutz, which was like a family and being held in a certain type of system where you’re not alone, that coming to Jerusalem I was really totally alone. And then I felt, “Oh, my God, this is really far away from my family.” I really felt the separation, much more than when I was in the United States. Because when I was in the United States, I would go three times a year, during the summer for a whole month of the summer. Here it meant that I would see my parents once a year. I was then twenty-one, which was still young. So I had lots of decisions and I was really by myself.

But little by little—I think it took something like five years to really feel that this is where I belong. That’s how long it took. The more I hear about it, the more I understand that that’s the case here, that it takes five years to really settle in.

(So you started at Hebrew University and you studied psychology?)

I studied at Hebrew University, then in art history I also studied, art history and psychology. At one point I had to move because of a boyfriend to Haifa University. He was studying at the Technion, so I studied there. But I didn’t like the studies, so I ended up finishing here at the Hebrew University. Then I worked, after I finished I worked in a mental hospital with autistic children for a year and I realized—the arts had always been a part of my life. I used them a lot with these children, and then discovered the world of art therapy. There wasn’t such a program here to study, so I went to the United States and got my Master’s degree in art therapies at Lesley College in Cambridge.

When I was about to finish my degree at Lesley College, I was very worried. I asked myself, where am I going to work? Where am I—I mean, usually art therapies are used in the educational school system or in the hospital. And I didn’t like both settings. So I said to myself, “What do I do with this, so that I can feel free to do what I want and be as creative as I want?” So I decided I’m gonna create my own center! Let’s create an art therapy center.

So then I decided to turn to friends. One of them was a man who was a psychodramatist, and then a friend of mine here who was older than me who I had worked with at the hospital and who I knew did not have a job then. Everybody got enthusiastic about it. So we started this art therapy center, and it’s still alive today.

(Here in Jerusalem?)

Mm-hmm.

(So the guy from Boston moved to—?)

Moved here together with me. We started it as a pilot project in 1980. The municipality gave us an air raid shelter, and the place is still here, in the air raid shelter. I turned to Salvadoran Jews through the phone, and also through letters, to raise funds for this. So with $5000 from the Salvadoran community, we furnished the place. (chuckles) And then we invited—what we did was art therapy for children who had difficulty socializing. It was group theory through the arts. What we did is, we took a group of eight children with three therapists and then we presented our work. We did it twice a week, and then psychologists and teachers from all over Jerusalem came to see our work. We would invite every time a few. The following year we were completely full and could work on a regular basis, on an everyday basis and with a salary.

(Only a year it took?)

Yes. It was, like, we had a waiting list immediately. It was something that didn’t exist here, and the children enjoyed it tremendously. Just two weeks ago I went into this café, and this girl who’s 32-years-old today had seen me a previous weekend, went to Yoav, my husband, and said, “You were sitting here with a woman last week, sort of redhead, is her name Noemi?” He said yes. “Well, she took care of me when I was at the art therapy center. And I was ten.” So when I came she was sort of waiting for me, to say hello to me. I was amazed that she recognized me. She is thirty-two, and she was ten the last time she saw me.

It was a lot of fun. It was a wonderful time of my life, to do this center for six years. And afterwards I left to the United States, because I had married Yoav. He’s a mathematician. He had his doctorate, and he wanted to do his post-doctorate work. So we went to the United States, to Cal Tech. I had my first baby, Natalie.

(In the United States?)

No, here. So we went away with Natalie and Yoav for his post-doctorate studies, which really lasted for three years. And then I decided there to do a social work degree—an MSW. Because I thought to myself, “Well, I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to do the art center for the rest of my life, and I know that I don’t like the school system or the hospital system, so social work will be something that’s therapy, and I will be able to do it wherever I want, in the United States or in Israel. It’ll give me the freedom of choice..”

So I studied there social work and then I came here and I did an institute of psychotherapy.

(So you trained.)

I trained as a therapist.

(When you went to Cal Tech, did the center continue?)

It continued. It continued until now.

(OK. Good.)

We just celebrated this year twenty-five years. We started in 1980. So it’s still going on, and it’s growing. It’s really an amazing thing, because it was from a small project, and it just kept on going. Because it’s a very, very good project, and people love it, and people just continue supporting it. So it hasn’t fallen to pieces. (laughs)

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC