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.
Alas, our last day in the intellectually fertile mindscape of the Arava Valley. We wrapped up interviews on Kibbutz Lotan with Mark Naveh, the mazkir (ie, kibbutz secretary), about the challenges of his evolving community, and Mike Kaplin, one of the brains behind the creative ecology centre. Afterwards, we walked down the stairs of a bomb shelter—and into a student seminar about peace and social justice.
We returned to Ketura, where I had one of those only-in-Israel conversations with a Palestinian student in the swimming pool of the kibbutz. He described his intellectual aspirations and the frustrations of growing up and trying to do business as a Palestinian in East Jerusalem.
Finally, we sat in on several student presentations about their research at the Institute before we had to hop into the car and drive across the Negev Desert, past tank-training facilities and down into the Ramon Crater (where we nearly ran out of gas) before finally pulling into Kibbutz Urim. We were both intellectually and physically drained. We had seen visions of different ways of living together in the desert and it will take days, probably longer, to make sense of all that we learned there.
We woke up at Kibbutz Ketura and wandered just a few hundred feet to the offices (in the old turkey house) of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. First, we got a tour thanks to Tamar Norkin, an intern from the U.S., and then afterwards, we learned about the philosophy and programs from executive director David Lehrer. If Lotan takes a creative, hands-on approach to permaculture and ecological literacy, then Arava offers an intellectually focused program of university-level studies.
The Institute also brings together students from a range of often conflicting demographics: Israeli Jews, international students, Palestinians, Jordanians. As Lehrer told us, after the recent flotilla incident, the Arava Instiute was likely one of the only places where Israeli Jews and Palestinians were in the same room communicating with each other—they may have been shouting at times, but at least they were communicating.
That afternoon, we had an illuminating discussion with Uri Gordon, author of Anarchy Alive!, who teaches environmental politics and other courses at the Arava Institute. I was especially interested in his opinions (which he nearly did his PhD on, until he decided to focus on contemporary anarchism) about how A.D. Gordon, the intellectual godfather of the kibbutz movement, was also a forerunner of modern environmental thought.
The next morning, after another healthy Israeli breakfast, we drove just a little south to the legendary Kibbutz Samar. Variously described (and sometimes derided) as the “hippy kibbutz” or the “anarchist kibbutz”, Samar has famously combined communal economics with individual freedom. There are few committees or other bodies lording over the decisions of members. Instead, they share a single bank account (they used to have a common cash box, from which they just took money as they needed it), they work where they want and when they want, and not according the demands of a set job rotation. They don’t use hired labour for the grunt work. (Most of their money comes from growing organic dates.)
And despite the fears of the Kibbutz Movement and the predictions of skeptical observers, Samar still works in its own weird, anarchic way. We had a wonderful visit with Musa Menahem and his wife, both of whom were among the early settlers., and they told me many funny and inspiring stories about communal life on Samar. (More later.) I also asked about whether their children plan to stay on the kibbutz when they grow up. (They’re still not sure.) And we all wondered what a teenager on Samar would have to do to rebel against his or her parents: Become a lawyer for the Likud in Tel Aviv, I guess.
As several people told me, both on the kibbutz and off, Samar is an amazing experiment in communal sharing and personal freedom, but one whose structure has never been replicated becase it’s more about the unique people who live there than their rules (or lack thereof) for living together.
Afterwards, we dropped by Kibbutz Yotvata, the oldest and most successful (thanks to its dairy) community in the arid valley, and stopped for gelatos and a dip in the Red Sea in the resort town of Eilat. A perfect end to an inspiring day with amazing people who have found a way to live outside the mainstream of pure self-interest and hyper-capitalism.
After our meeting with the minister, we suffered rush-hour traffic one more time, fought our way out of Tel Aviv and headed south, past Beer-Sheva (where years ago I visited the market, bought a keffiyeh like the typical young tourist, and later saw several Bedouin men running beside my bus, laughing and shouting, “Arafat! Arafat!”) and, as night fell, descended off the plateau of Negev Desert and down into the Arava Valley. We dropped our bags in a guest room at Kibbutz Lotan and then woke the next morning for breakfast and a tour of the kibbutz’s innovative eco-education facilities.
Netta, a resident (but not a member), gave us a brief history of Lotan, and then led us to the Bustan, the student quarters where she also lives—a series of energy-efficient mud-covered straw-bale huts, like earthen igloos or Luke Skywalker’s home on Tatooine. We tried out some of the solar ovens and then walked to the Ecokef, a demonstration park and teaching area, with a cool playground made up of clayed-over garbage, composting toilets and an organic garden, where we plundered tea leaves and the last of their tomatoes. “Permaculture is my religion,” Netta told us. And it’s here on Lotan (where members also practise Reform Judaism) that newcomers get initiated into this philosophy of living lightly on the land.
After lunch, we hooked up with Alex Cicelsky, the director of research and development at Lotan’s Center for Creative Ecology, and had a long, wide-ranging and engaging conversation about the history of this unique kibbutz, its mix of spiritual and ecological philosophies (an environmental spin on tikkun olan), the challenges of building eco-friendly buildings, and other topics related to how ecological literacy has sprouted out of the communal life of Lotan. He invited us to the kabalat shabat ceremony later that evening and for Friday night dinner, where we met some of the students and volunteers. The song and prayer and shared meal helped us appreciate the melding of spiritual and communal life in this fascinating desert community.
The only disappointment of the day? The sign on the gate to the swimming pool: “Closed due to sandstorm.”
One last day in the big city—this time, to talk with some big wigs. First, we met with Abu Vilan, a former MK for the Meretz party and longtime player in the Artzi Federation of the kibbutz movement. He talked about his life on his own kibbutz and the challenges faced by the Israeli left in the current right-leaning political climate. (Part of it is image, he noted, pointing out how I look like the typical Israeli lefty with my reading glasses.)
Afterwards, we were lucky enough to have a half-hour meeting with Haim Oron, a kibbutznik and sitting member of the Knesset for the left-leaning Meretz Party. He expanded on a recent column he write about the creeping fascism—he told us McCarthyism might be more accurate—in Israeli politics, the way that any kind of dissent against the government is quickly demonized as unpatriotic. A fascinating conversation with that rare beast: a principled politician.
Coming up: A consciousness-expanding journey into the desert…
We gave ourselves more time and fought our way through the traffic jam on the main highway. This time we arrived a half0hour early to our destination: the Sadaka Reut organization near the Old City. There, we met with Lena and Jawad, both 19, and Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian respectively. They’ve been living together with six other young people as part of “The Commune”, a one-year experiment in co-existence and co-operation. (Imagine “The Real World: Israel” with less binge-drinking, fewer cameras and way more political activism.”) They are amazingly passionate individuals doing impressive activities; every month they collectively organize a political or educational act: erasing racist graffiti, protesting house demolitions, producing educational videos about Gaza.
Jaffa can be a tough neighbourhood, we’d heard, and we saw evidence of that after leaving Sadaka Reut. Several police cars and ambulances had stopped by a house, and an Arab woman was crying on the sidewalk. Attendants with stretchers rushed through a door. We asked a nearby parking lot attendant what had happened. “There was a shooting,” he shrugged. “Someone got hit.” Time to get out of Jaffa.
Kibbutz Tamuz
After a swim at Neve Shalom, we drove to the town of Beit Shemesh and visited Kibbutz Tamuz—an urban kibbutz, which I’d heard so much about last year but had yet to see in person. There, Yiftah Goldman, one of the members, showed us around and gave us a history of the community, which combines urban co-housing and communal economics with a sense of social purpose. Tamuz has struggled recently, however, as Beit Shemesh has become an increasingly ultra-Orthodox town; these new religious residents have been resistant to cooperating with the Tamuz residents in the types of social projects that drew them to the city in the first place. That said, Tamuz looks like a wonderful place to raise a family, amongst close friends, with an open green space where residents gather and talk as the sun goes down. Again, we left with our heads full of new ideas and new ways of living.
The next day was intensely busy—although it began with a slow and frustrating drive into Tel Aviv during rush hour traffic. We managed to reach the offices of Michael and Bracha Chyutin, husband and wife architects, just a few minutes late and had a brief but fascinating conversation about Michael’s interest (and recent book) about the architecture and especially urban planning of the Israeli kibbutz, as well as how it connects to earlier utopian schemes and experiments.
Then we rushed over (and got a little lost) to Tel Aviv University, where we met Assaf Razin, a leading international economist and also a former member of Kibbutz Shamir. His parents were part of the founding generation and were greatly disappointed when he decided to continue his career elsewhere and not remain a member. We had a long discussion about his life and philosophy. While Dr. Razin remained largely focused on academic work, he also briefly acted as chief economic advisor to Menachem Begin and vainly tried to warn his administration of the hyper-inflation that would eventually cripple the Israeli economy and set in motion the privatization of the kibbutz movement.
We had a brief break in which we met (and had some fabulous Turkish humous with) Jerry’s cousin Eitan, a former computer whiz who gave it all up to become an oud player (a stringed Arabic instrument a little like a lute).
Then we parked at Rabin Square, which was filled with booksellers for Hebrew Book Week, and walked around the very area where Prime Minister Rabin had been assassinated by a Jewish nationalist extremist for his peace efforts.
At the Book Worm, a literary café, we had a free-changing chat with Jonathan Paz, director of the film The Galilee Eskimos, and Joshua Sobol, Israel’s leading playwright, who wrote The Night of the 20th, a critical take on the early pioneers who settled the first kibbutzim—and set in motion the future state of Israel. He told us his play deals with the split between “moralists” (who want to consider the ethics of their behaviour) and “activists” (those who feel action must be taken right now)—a tension that has haunted both the kibbutz movement and Israeli politics ever since. (The raid on the Gaza flotilla could be seen as another example of the triumph—and failure—of acting before truly considering the consequences of those actions.) Afterwards, both men chatted in Hebrew about an upcoming collaboration on a new film.
Finally, we grabbed a coffee with Lavi Ben-Gal, the 37-year-old director of Eight Twenty Eight, a brilliantly quirky documentary about his early life on his kibbutz (Nitzanim) and his debate about whether to stay or to go. He was as funny in person as he is in his film.
All in all, a busy day that left our heads spinning with fascinating people and new ideas.
In the morning, we joined a congregation of Reform Jews from the Bay Area for further explanation of the life and philosophy at Wahat-al-Salam (which, like “Neve Shalom”, means “Oasis of Peace”) from Daoud Boulous, another Arab resident of the community. Later that day, the community had erected banner at the entrance protesting the recent fatal raid on the flotilla of activists bring aid to Gaza. This tragedy would shadow many of our discussions during our first week here,
In the afternoon, after a swim at the Neve Shalom pool, we returned to Revadim, and Jerry reunited with his sister Shlomit (and later his aunt, Rena). Shlomit told us about how she came to live on Revadim (part of the Artzi Federation—aka, the most left-of-centre kibbutzim) and more about the process of privatization that has altered the kibbutz. The most obvious evidence is the kibbutz equivalent of “monster homes”: big, boxy new family houses that dwarf the smaller, conjoined row-apartment residents of the oldtime members.
It’s been a hectic first week of my research trip in Israel: I arrived with Jerry, my research assistant and cultural guide, Sunday just before noon. We grabbed a rental car and drove to Neve Shalom/Wahat-al Salam, where we stayed for four nights at a guest house at this unique community. After dropping our bags, we got an introduction to Neve Shalom/Wahad al-Salam from Abdessalam Najjar, one of the earliest residents. The community was founded about 30 years ago, just off the Tel-Aviv/Jerusalem highway, as a place where Arabs and Jews could live in peaceful co-existence, while also running programs that encourage dialogue to help others do the same. Today, there is a long waitlist of other Arab and Jewish residents of Israel keen to take up residence. (Space on the limited amount of land, donated in a covenant by the nearby Latrun Monastery, is the main issue holding back expansion.) Abdesssalam admitted that his community is far from typical in his country; in fact, the government likes to use Neve Shalom in its feel-good press relations while giving no financial or other support to the community itself. Rather, it’s something of an isolated island of middle-class professionals who have managed to find a way of living with the conflict that divides this country while not ignoring it. It’s also a beautiful neighbourhood in an idyllic rural setting where the coastal plains start to rise toward the hills of Jerusalem—a soothing setting to sleep off some jet-lag while still running around and doing interviews.
Kibbutz Revadim
Next, we had tea at Kibbutz Revadim (where Jerry’s sister, a ceramics artist lives), and spoke with Uri Pinkerfeld, a founder as well as an activist who acts to protect Palestinian olive groves from destruction by settlers. He told us about the early history of the kibbutz, which was originally near Jerusalem but captured and then relocated during and after the War of 1948, and the process of privatization that it underwent, after careful consideration by its members. This “change” was less traumatic at Revadim, which wasn’t in as deep financial crisis as many kibbutzim.
The Independent in Ireland ran an interesting column by a writer who spent time on a kibbutz, when he was 19, as a volunteer during the early 80s. He looks back on the nearly 30 years of increasing tension and violence between Israelis and Palestinians, while recognizing the complex society—or rather network of societies—that constitute modern Israel. He also contrasts the pastoral life of the kibbutz with the tension of current events.
His point of view is essentially the same as mine: a non-Jewish outsider who fell under the thrall of Israel—its landscapes, its cultures, its peoples, its history—as an idealistic young international volunteer, and who is now struggling to hold onto that idealism despite the grim tit for tat violence in the region and the decreasing hopes for peace.
As he writes, looking back on life on a kibbutz in the Galilee:
As someone who has visited Israel frequently and who spent a formative six months on a kibbutz at the age of 19, all of this saddens me. For despite the conflict, there is something magical about this tiny state, created by the Jewish immigrants of over 120 countries and built on the beautiful desert of their biblical homeland.
It is a country of paradoxes: an ancient land, steeped in the animosities of some the world’s largest religions, and yet a dynamic sun-drenched country, with a booming agriculture and IT economy, a thriving gay scene and a celebrated dance culture.
After a frenetic week of packing and repacking, I’m finally on the road (or rather in the air) for my research trip to Israel. I’m nervous of course (especially given recent events) and spent the last half hour mooning over photos of my family on my Ipod.
I’m excited too by the busy month of travel and interviews ahead. Jerry my research assistant and I will hit the ground running: we will be staying at Neve Shalom for four nights as we visit Tel Aviv and Jerusalem as well as his sister on Kibbutz Revadim. Then we head south into the desert for four nights and many more kibbutzim: Lotan, Ketura, Yotvata and Samar. Then back north toward Gaza and Urim, Migvan and Kfar Aza.
Probably another day or two in Tel Aviv before heading north to Mishmar HaEmek. Finally I will get a few days to visit friends on Shamir before a 3-day conference near Kibbutz Mizra and a 2-day tour of nearby communities. Then one more day of wrap up interviews in Tel Aviv and home at last!
Here is an interesting review of a new book about the kibbutz and “utopian architecture” by a pair of Israeli architects (who aren’t kibbutzniks). It also mentions that the Venice Biennale—the world’s most important art show—will include an exhibit on the architecture of the kibbutz at the Israeli pavilion this year. I’m making plans to meet and interview both the authors of the book (who I believe are also designing part of the pavilion) and the curator of the Venice exhibit while I’m in Israel next month. I’ll be fascinated to hear their expert perspectives on how the kibbutz was designed to reflect its progressive ideals and how its design related to earlier visions of utopia.
Here is an interesting link to pictures and a brief (and cryptic) description of an art installation based around photos taken of the doors of houses and apartments at Kibbutz Yeraon. I’m not sure if I can make sense of the “art speak” that describes the intent of the piece (“The sculpture points to fraction/collapse of the social ideal, an attempt to reconstruct and to preserve fragments of utopian realm….. A critical reflection – home door as a portrait, the split verge, the individual lacking a proper ideological space”), but it looks like a very creative way to play around with images of kibbutz life in a highly original context.
If newspapers write the “first draft of history”, then documentary films offer a more considered, less-hurried and yet still-relevant appraisal of the past. Added to that perspective, the creative world of fiction—whether on the page or the screen—lets readers and audiences see the great themes of modern life through an extra fish-eye lens of the imagination, in which the artist can fill in gaps in (or otherwise distort) the documentary record or use historical events as the backdrop against which invented characters spring to life.
Most of the films about the changes to Israel’s kibbutzim (all made in the last five years) that I’ve watched, reviewed and labeled under the label of “privatization cinema” (or perhaps “cinema shinui” is more accurate) have been documentaries about real people and real places. Not so The Galilee Eskimos—and yet this fictional odyssey, released in 2006, sheds as much light as the other movies on the question of what it means to be a kibbutznik in the year 2010.
I actually watched The Galilee Eskimos last November, before it screened at the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, but only had a chance to view it again earlier this week. I enjoyed the Israeli-made comedy-drama just as much this time as before…. which is to say, quite a bit. The story is by director-producer Jonathan Paz (whose other films include Zaya and Rakevet Ha’Emek), with a screenplay by Joshua Sobol, one of Israel’s leading playwrights and himself a former member of Kibbutz Shamir. The best way I can describe The Galilee Eskimos is “Cocoon meets The Bad News Bears, with Sten Guns.” Trust me.
The story is simple enough: one morning, a dozen elderly residents wake up to discover that the members of their deeply indebted kibbutz, founded 60 years earlier along the Lebanese border, have abandoned them in the middle of the night and run off. “They left us to die,” laments one of the retirees when they finally realize what has happened, “like the eskimos do.” The only other person is the hired Chinese care-worker, who knows something about how a society can be both communist and capitalist at the same time.
The motley crew of elderly kibbutzniks, half men, half women, are comic exaggerations of different personality types: The flighty children’s house nanny who keeps breaking into song. The feisty ex-army-type who digs up a stash of old weapons and wants to fight the War of Independence again. The lusty couple who were always too bohemian to fall into the bourgeois trap of love—until suddenly it seems too late. The senile oldster haunted by memories of his childhood and a sense of impending doom. The wheelchair-bound filmmaker whose cynicism and thoughts of suicide are balanced by his own nostalgia for the early days of kibbutz life. Together, they quarrel and joke and gossip and still—despite creaking, nearly spent bodies—lust after each other.
Finally, they must come together once more, collectively, when a nefarious developer buys the insolvent kibbutz from the bank and seeks to evict the “Galilee eskimos” so that he can build a casino-resort. There are many funny scenes, including the seniors’ desperate ploy to grow worms as a money-making enterprise, or bathing together in the nearly empty swimming pool, or trying to defend their home with weapons, as one member puts it, “nearly as old as we are”.
The movie is also, in small part, a love note to the power of film itself. A climactic moment comes when the group sits outside to watch four decades of footage shot by Yolek the kibbutz filmmaker: the erection of the first stockade, a long assembly debate about whether private tea kettles would ruin collective life, and then scenes of children playing in the kibbutz, which bring tears to all their eyes as they all weep over the loss of their own children, their own youth, and their own hard-fought-for home. It’s a powerful emotional punch in an otherwise lighthearted film.
Again, I don’t dare give away the ending. The Hollywood plotline that The Galilee Eskimos mostly follows, of underdogs against bullies, usually ends in a clearcut victory for the heroes. But the gravity of changes to kibbutz life in the real world is too strong for such a predictably happy ending in this fictional version. And Jonathan Paz’s film is too honest and original to let its characters—or its audience—off so easily.
