Sarah Kalai

We were asked to collect some of the associations written in memory of our friend Sarah Kalai, who passed away prematurely this year. A few days ago, we held a memorial evening at the IIGA. In this evening, we dealt with the question Sarah had left us: what does social involvement mean for us as professionals and group analysts? Three good friends shared their thoughts in her memory. We thought we would convey to you these personal words that contained closeness and acquaintance with Sarah’s place and role in our group – the community of the Israeli Institute for Group Analysis. Our friends agreed to do so and here they are, translated by Bruce Oppenheimer.

Anca Ditroi, Marit Joffe Milstein, Yafi Shpirer

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I would like to begin with two memories of Sarah. At one of the study days of our Institute, after the Large Group had finished, Sarah asks me to help her collect the food that remained. I do so, more out of obligation than enthusiasm. With boxes of food in our hand, we wait for a ride to take us to Lewinsky gardens, a park in an area inhabited by migrants and refugees. We leave the food on a bench in the park. The second memory, again at the end of the Large Group, we are both on our way to the cloakroom and Sarah mumbles irritably, “What a waste. Again, nobody talked about the Occupation”.

For Sarah, social activism and helping those denied a voice was an imperative. This was her ethical position in the world: not to patronize but to approach people directly and as an equal. Above all, to listen to them.

Sarah was often critical of herself, and questioned her motives in giving to others. She gave from something in her being that identified profoundly with the pain, the suffering and the feeling of exclusion. Such feelings emanate from one’s very core. They cannot be dissembled.

She would refer to herself, ruefully, as one of the privileged. But deep down, she had an instinctive feel, an intuitive resonance, a thread of exquisite sensitivity to the distress of the underprivileged and the disenfranchised.

Sarah paid a heavy price for her thoughts, attitudes and actions. This was very hard for her to bear. She would get hurt, retreat into herself, and sink into despair. There were moments like these in the Institute, as we all know. I was with her on some of these occasions and I can only hope that I helped assuage her loneliness.

I want to formulate some questions that were crucial for Sara. What is the source of social activism? What allows one to connect between one’s own suffering and that of others? What allows one to translate this identification into action? And finally, what allows one to do so with compassion and love?

Sarah, my dear friend, I miss you so much. I will always love and remember you.

Orit Mas Goldman
September 2020

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Sara passed away a few months ago and the shock of the unexpected suddenness of her death is still with us.

An image that comes to my mind from our shared journeys in my car during these last years, returning from our Institute meetings and Journal club meetings back to Jerusalem late at night. Frequently we used this opportunity to talk about our therapy groups (one didn’t gossip with Sara). We shared vignettes, doubts and questions and particularly our distress and difficulties in recruiting new members to our groups – Jerusalem seems .so difficult also in that respect

Lately, I felt that Sara was quite happy with the goings of her group. She would say that her group is small but works very well.

When I consulted her about my group, she was both focused and “deep ” simultaneously. After all, she was an experienced supervisor with many working years of work as a clinical psychologist in a Child Psychotherapy Unit in Jerusalem. After retirement from public service, she continued to do therapy and supervision in her private clinic. She was professional, serious and to the point.

Sometimes she used to fall asleep in the car -silently-exhausted after a long day of travelling both to visit her sister and recently to her granddaughter. Her role as .grandparent brought joy and light into Sara’s life

She used to leave the car in the Beit HaKerem Yefe Nof neighborhood where she lived with her family – her husband and two adult children – and where her clinic was located.

I saw Sara as a political person and this is my main point of reference here. She was a very caring person and was engaged in matters of social injustice. She tended to be silent, but she was definitely not silenced.

Sara insisted that we should do more, she urged us to leave our comfort zone with regard to the plight of the Palestinians, of the refugees and migrant workers and the consequences of the occupation. Sara was a political person with a political agenda. I have memories of her participating in demonstrations against the occupation in Jerusalem many, many years ago. She was political in the sense of being an activist rather than being theoretically inclined.

She found an integration between the political and the psychological in “Psychoactive”, an Israeli professional organization which has a declarative credo against the occupation. Sara was an active member since its establishment. Among other activities she conducted a supervision group for Israeli and Palestinian professionals over a period of many years. A colleague from Psychoactive said, “Sara had endless vast resources of energy for any activity concerning the Palestinians’ human rights and refugees”.

At the conference in Israel of the Relational Psychologists Sara and Ruti Duek organized a workshop following a guided tour of some of the occupied territories. They were instrumental in exposing the participants to the perspective of the Palestinians. They also organized a workshop at our International Group Analytic Conference ” Roots and Wings” in April 2019, as well as a tour of East Jerusalem for the members of the Institute. This tour was also followed by a workshop.

Sara was vulnerable and she did not hesitate to voice her point of view. She identified strongly with the victim and sometimes she herself spoke from within her own sense of being a victim. However, she also had the capacity to reflect on herself and on the dynamics of the relationships in which she was involved.

In 2017 Sara precipitated a heated debate in our Institute about the issue of exclusion. The trigger was her not being invited to a private group, made up exclusively of Institute members also from Sarah’s cohort. Many members participated in the discussions and many perspectives were put forward. There were expressions of empathy with the pain of rejection, and emotional support for Sara from some of her peers and colleagues supporting her struggle for solidarity in the group. There were also dissenting voices: some supported people’s right to choose whom they wanted in their group. There was recognition and affirmation of the right not to include and the universality of the experience of not being included- we all share that at times. As a result of this debate and other more informal discussions, Sara was invited to join by the initiators of the private group. Graciously, she agreed and became an active member. In my view, the process of hurt and repair was very meaningful, and resonated to one of Sara’s core issues. She allowed her vulnerability and her pain at being excluded to show, and she also made room for possible repair by empathy and inclusion. At some point in the correspondence within the Israeli institute, Sara wrote, “I consider the Group Analytic Institute my professional home”.

We miss her very much,

Elisabeth Rothschild
Jerusalem, 27/9/20

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The choice of the MC to hold a discussion on “Thoughts on Social Engagement in the Institute of Group Analysis”, in memory of our colleague Dr. Sara Kalai ז”ל is important and appropriate.

Sara, Joshua and me were the leaders of the academic committee in the institute for several years. When we completed our term of office, Sara continued as the head of the academic committee. However, a significant part of her activities was done elsewhere. An example is seminars in the series “To know – not to know”, the first of which was held in Jerusalem on 6.9.16. Sara concludes:

“…the conductors were expected to find a way for the discussion to include all political, social and emotional views. Our aim was to try and figure out what prevents or what enables awareness of what is happening, and to understand the process that occurs as a result. The groups started to split according to identities and group affiliations: males via females, adults via youngsters, Sephardi’s via Ashkenazi’s, and those who live within the green line via those who live outside. The feelings and emotions that came out in the groups were anger and wanting to leave, physical suffocation, personal frustration at not being active enough, and a feeling of being stuck with the wish for group consolidation…. The heated discussion (in the Large group) seemed to belong to the raging and difficult reality outside, the space that existed in the smaller groups disappeared, and it seemed that a dialogue is not possible and you could only shield yourself from the intensive feelings that arose to survive… Gradually the discussion became more complex, it seemed that the conductors took control.”

Sara took part in the meetings of “Besod Si’ach” in Peki’in and other areas in Israel. Her firm views were heard, and one could not hide as not-knowing, closed eyes or ignoring.

The training groups in the Institute for Group Analysis are called k’. Bion deals with knowing and not-knowing, k’ minus and plus. When a group develops and is enriched with the ideas of people, the knowledge is positive. A minus situation arises when the new idea or the person who raised it lose their value. The group feels that its worth is damaged by the new idea, and it cannot take in the thought of the emotional experience. “One cannot imagine an emotional experience isolated from relation” says Bion (1962). The atmosphere that gives birth to an emotional experience is the contact between two people.

We, who teach and study group work, apply the emotional experience to the relations between groups and in the groups, to a social matrix.

Sara’s study group and the one she belonged to was k2. On 12.11.17 she wrote to the members of the institute with a rare candour:

“… Usually, when I am hurt, I am speechless. This time I managed to regain my composure and to express clearly, not aggressively but assertively, my pain that I will not participate. I believe the subject was raised during the two days meetings of the institute. I think that my straightforward remarks raised my hopes that my words may bring about thoughts, human feelings of solidarity, and a renewed thinking about the decision… I do not think that all the responsibility lies on me… I am curious to understand how, in an organization that learns constantly how to deal with situations of Exclusion – Inclusion, solidarity and mutual help are forgotten. This is a question that should be discussed here sometime. As for now, it hurts me to be excluded.”

It was not the first time that Sara challenged the “comfort zone” of the institute. Joshua, who disagreed with her, answered in wide circulation: “The discussion in the institute in the last two weeks was of one colour, that covered and dazzled all other colours that are not less, or even more, strong.”

Towards the new year Sara could not already collect donations of school equipment for the children of Philippine migrant workers. Her friend, Varda Amir, sent Elizabeth the following letter:

Shalom Elizabeth. I want you to deliver thanks to the members of the institute that joined in donating to א.ס.ף in memory of Sara Kalai. Together we collected nearly 5000 Shekel that will help the children of the refugees in these difficult times to prepare for the next school year. Sara used to do this every summer and thus we honor her memory.

Hoping for better days,
Varda Amir

The voice of Sara Kalai will not be silenced. On her spiritual will we can say, as written in פרקי אבות: ” It is not for you to finish your duty, but you are not allowed to leave it”. The more we are exposed to different points of view , the closer we can get to our shared truth.

Mishael Chirurg
Ma’alot, Israel