Tag #157153 - Interview #78067 (abraham pressburger)

Later, when I stayed for a few weeks at the Hashomer Hatzair agricultural training center in Unhost, near Prague, I often had rendezvous with her. We grew close and became a couple. She was 17 and I was between 22 and 23. I have to say that these sorts of boy-girl pairs often formed in Hashomer Hatzair. It used to be said about them that they were zug, in Hebrew it means a couple. But they were almost platonic relationships, because in Hashomer Hatzair we were officially against raw sexuality. We were of the opinion that sexuality should be postponed, because it was completely openly proclaimed that the sublimation of sexual energy leads to higher culture, a higher level of humanity. We didn't get our official wedding certificate from the rabbinate until we were in Israel, in the kibbutz. There, in the kibbutz it was the custom that when a boy and girl decided to become husband and wife, there was a big celebration. It was a real wedding, but the official marriage document was made once in a while, when there were already ten such cases. They brought in a rabbi and one pair after another went under the chuppah and underwent the so-called official wedding. I was the only one who had a wedding ring and that wedding ring made the rounds from one to the next, when one pair was leaving the chuppah, the next pair would enter the chuppah and I always gave the ring to the pair that was going into the chuppah.