Jul 7, 2010
I’m back in Victoria and starting to emerge from my jet-lag fog and feeling guilty about how far behind my blog is. I only got halfway through describing my trip, before our busy schedule (and erratic Internet access) kept me from updating. I probably should have Tweeted the trip instead! I’ll try to catch up and fill in the blanks of the last few weeks, which were as equally fascinating and inspiring as the first half of the trip. In the meantime, let me break down my journey by the numbers.
Days: 30
Kilometres driven: 2,942
Damage I did to rental car: $140 US
Kibbutzim visited: 23
Other intentional communities visited: 6
Swims in the ocean: only 1 (we were working!)
Humous and pita consumed: too much to count
Shoe stores visited in Jerry’s ultimate fruitless quest for the perfect man-sandals: 10+
Members of Parliament we interviewed: 1 (Haim Oron)
Heads of state who declined a meeting: 1 (Eli Avivi of Achzibland was under the weather)
A month in Israel: priceless
Jun 27, 2010
We packed up and drove west toward the coast above Akko. Destination: the “state” of Achzib. For more than 40 years, eccentric squatter Eli Avivi has lorded over this “micro-nation”, based around the abandoned mansion of an Arab sheik who fled after 1948. I had visited Achzibland at least once when I was a volunteer 20 years ago—in fact, I was married there in a boozy ceremony around the campfire—and have at least two passports with the crude stamp that Eli applies for visitors. Last year, I was the only visitor, so Eli coaxed me into driving him into Naharya and having coffee there and then driving him to the grocery store to buy cat foot. (It’s a good bet I will never do that with another head of state.) I was hoping that Jerry could meet him on this trip, but alas Eli was under the weather and not doing interviews anymore. Still, he’s a legend in my mind—a stubborn visionary who withstood every attempt by authorities to uproot him from his nation on the beach until they finally gave up and installed a highway sign with his name on it instead. From outlaw to tourist attraction.
Finally, we drove east into the hills again until we got lost in the back roads of the “village” of Klil. Actually, it’s not officially a village, which we learned from longtime resident (and scientist, and herbalist, and peace activist, and Buddhist teacher) Stephen Fulder is a good thing. Klil is on land purchased from local Druze Arabs, so residents can own a plot (unlike kibbutzim, which sit on property leased from the Israel Land Authority), but because it doesn’t have official status, any construction on these properties is technically illegal and could be ordered torn down by the local bureaucracy—an unlikely outcome, but one that keeps people from moving in and building unsightly monster homes.
Instead, many of the homes in Klil are off-the-grid or temporary. When we got lost, we called Stephen and said we were near the yurt—not a useful landmark, it turned out. “There are 14 yurts in Klil,” he replied. When we finally connected, we had a fascinating conversation with Fulder about his various careers and how he came to settle up in the hills of western Galilee. Later, we had a great meal at a local hippie café, and then had another wide-ranging chat with Rachel, Stephen’s wife, the next morning. She is a Talmudic scholar who did graduate work to—in her own words—“bring feminism to Jewish learning.” She grew up in Jaffa and has a close connection to Arab culture, and told us many stories about life in these hills, amongst the hippies, the back-to-the-landers, and the Druze.
Jun 27, 2010
We stayed the night at Kibbtuz Revadim, so Jerry could visit with his sister, a sculptor on the kibbutz, before she flew to upstate New York and her summer job at an arts camp. Then we drove back toward Beit Shemish and stopped at Kibbutz Netiv HaLemad-he to visit with the founders of Vertigo Dance Company and the Eco Arts Village. It’s a wonderful project they’ve created—out of old chicken houses. They convinced the kibbutz to rent them the space, and now they use it for rehearsals for their dance company, complete with a kitchen and eating area, clay-walled resting rooms that can be used for overnights. Everything is design to be eco-friendly, with compost toilets, grey-water reuse, solar energy, etc..
We got to watch the rehearsal of a mesmerizing new contemporary dance that the company is working on. They also hope to rent out another chicken house and use it for the visual arts in a similar way. The co-founders described going door to door to dozens of kibbutzim between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, looking for a space and a community interested in joining in their vision. Netiv HaLemad-he is privatized, so the kibbutzniks welcomed the income of new tenants, but they also liked the cultural aspects of the Eco Arts Village—that it wasn’t just dropping a McDonald’s on kibbutz property. (We would see one of those later in the day, at Gan Shmuel.) As one member told us, “It’s the best thing that has happened to the kibbutz.”
The biggest danger in Israel these days, I already knew, isn’t from terrorism, but rather from road accidents. (In fact, during our visit, the son of a supreme court judge was killed by a drunk driver while cycling on the highway.) Everyone told us to drive safely when we left. Alas, the biggest danger—at least to our rental car—wasn’t from speed-mad Israeli drivers but rather from a rusty Canadian one. Jerry managed to guide us through the rush of traffic that crosses Tel Aviv everyday, and we switched seats at the mall at Kibbutz Gan Shmuel. I managed to get us all the way to the quirky hillside village of Amirim, a collection of guest houses, restaurants and various new-agey outfits based around a vegetarian philosophy—and then promptly scraped the hell out of the front bumper while backing into our parking spot. Oops. That took a little luster off a good day of travel and meetings. If that’s the worst accident on this busy trip, however, I will be thankful.
Jun 27, 2010
We woke the next morning, and joined Mark Marcus, the mazkir (i.e., kibbutz secretary), for a quick tour of Kibbutz Urim, just outside the “Gaza Envelope”. There have been changes at Urim (a paid dining room, for instance), but it still remains shitufi (or traditional) in terms of equal salaries for all members. Mark is in the midst of designing changes for his kibbutz that would allow two types of membership: the traditional type of equality and a more independent form of association (and salary) to attract new members.
Then we drove down to Sderot, a “development town” (where the Israeli government has helped settle new immigrants over the years) best known as ground zero for many of the Qassam rockets fired out of Gaza. There we visited Kibbutz Migvan, another urban kibbutz, this one on a tree-lined street on the outskirts of the city. We got to interview one of the founders, Nomika Zion, an extraordinary woman who regaled us for close to two hours with her personal history, the early debates and social-justice motives of Migvan, and her own work with the Other Voice movement that tries to create solidarity between the civilian communities in Gaza and Israel to break the cycle of violence that is usually the only reason outsiders ever hear about Gaza or Sderot. (Later we met Julia Chaitin, another key member of Other Voice, back in Urim.)
We left Sderot—a city most associated with anxiety and violence—moved and inspired by her vision of peace.
