kibbutz gonen

The first night of our Israel tour was spent in the hotel of Kibbutz Gonen in the north. Having spent a total of two years on three different Kibbutzim a decade ago, my eyelids fluttered with a sappy nostalgia as we entered the familar Kibbutz style gate.

Scruffy dogs sauntered freely through a maze of small tan buildings with red rooves. Brown drip irrigation lines snaked through well manicured gardens. Soapy water was being squeegeed out the front door of the flat roofed dining hall. Children climbed confidently over truck tire playgrounds. It was all familiar and I felt cozy.

I had spent 11th grade as a member of a program for American Jewish High School students on Kibbutz Beit Hashita. We lived in dorms, took classes in English at the Israeli school, worked one day a week on the Kibbutz, drank copious amounts of alchohol, had confused sexual experiences, smoked pack after pack of cigarettes, and engaged in dramatic teenage social relationships.

Living on a Kibbutz when I was 16 revealed to me an alternative to the suburban reality I had despised in Rockville Maryland. On the Kibbutz, there were no fences around the yards and the dogs weren't overweight. Working there I discovered that I could do manual labor, and that if I did, I would be able to create things with my bare hands.

I, the only small scale organic farmer and ex-Kibbutz resident of the birthright group, was quite a bit more enthusiastic about our tour of Kibbutz Gonen than the others. I wanted to chat with the Kibbutz member giving us the tour all day.

Is there any communal element left to Kibbutz life now that salaries are stratified, everyone owns their own stuff, and more than half of the Kibbutz members are over the age of sixty five? How did Kibbutzim come to the decision to hire Thai workers and pay them poorly rather than do the work themselves?

Why are the cucumbers in Israel sooooo amazing? And why are the tomatoes pale and flavorless?

Do you feel like a human shield here in the Golan Heights? Do you like it? What was the damage to the Kibbutz during the second Lebanon War in '06? How many weeks were you in the bomb shelter? Do you ever have the desire to invite your Lebanese neighbors from ten miles away over an invisible border to your house for coffee? Do you ever picture yourself in a cuddle puddle with them?

Do you miss communal life? I miss it for you.

During the bus ride from Kibbutz Gonen to Manara Cliff (an outlook from which the view of Israel's Syrian and Lebanese borders are visible) I gave a talk about my experiences on Kibbutzim. I also talked about how, while rural kibbutzim have fallen apart and all but ceased to be either communal or agricultural, there is a new movement of urban Kibbutzim dedicated to educating toward a socialist revolution in Israel. More on that to come...