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| (Kibbutz Ga'ash. Bird's eye view of the beach from high up the cliff.) |
And there I went, my car huffing and puffing up and down the hills around Jerusalem. I decided to switch off the AC to spare the engine when I saw other drivers with overheated engines on the side of the road. The car got incredibly hot and I became a sweaty mess. I was on my way to kibbutz Ga’ash!
Kibbutz Ga’ash sits on a plateau that overlooks the Mediterranean Sea. My third grade teacher told me everything about kibbutzim. Well, everything she knew about them. She explained us the kibbutznik tended beehives and built chicken coops. She told us that they settled in the Homeland and protected the borders. It looks like kibbutzim have changed quite a bit since I was in third grade and yes, this sentence totally dates me. I was expecting to see sun-tanned pioneer farmers growing honey bee gardens, nursing babies in batches and dining in communal dining halls. The kibbutz I saw didn’t have any of these things but it was even prettier than the images I had conjured up in my mind’s eye.
Kibbutz Ga’ash is a little paradise by the sea. The granddaughter of one of the founders introduced me to her grandfather Ezra Rabin, an 85-year old intellectual. Rabin was a chatterbox with clear blue eyes behind round glasses and a perceptive look. His wife seemed to be his eyes and ears though he did the talking. Rabin spoke in fluent English with a beautiful accent. He was born in Lithuania and moved to Argentina as a youngster. In the early 50s, he moved to Israel with his wife and co-founded kibbutz Ga’ash. While he was talking, his wife hid behind home-made cookies and invited us to a patio with plastic chairs and a toile cirée on the table.
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| (Ezra Rabin next to a family picture. The little boy standing is his father.) |
For kibbutzim and their members, it’s not all fun and games these days. A lot of kibbutzim underwent major changes the last two decades. Kids don’t sleep in communal dorms anymore and at many settlements, people get differential and individual wages. There are also various other forms of communal living, like moshavim, which are a kind of agricultural cooperatives of individual farms.
The next morning, when I asked my host Tali where I could do my laundry, she took a stick and drew a map in the sand. I was supposed to follow some main road through the kibbutz and got hopelessly lost. After five minutes in the sweltering heat, I was sweating like a pig. The kibbutz, however, with its colorful oleanders, little houses and vegetable patches looked as lovely as ever.
I felt right at home at the kibbutz. I am a big fan of the downsizing movement that is so popular these days in big cities. The underlying philosophy is simple: it’s not your possessions that make you happy, it’s your experiences. Kibbutzim have been masters at simplicity ever since they got started. People live in tiny rooms and get bigger houses as they get older. My host lived in a minuscule room; in the West Village, people would call it a micro-loft.
And though I didn’t see the virtuous sun-tanned pioneers, I met people with an enormous joie de vivre. I had the impression a lot of people here don’t take life for granted – for very obvious reasons. When life is more challenging, it’s more precious.
Interesting reading and watching:
Documentary “Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment (if you live in NYC, you can watch this documentary at the Israel Film Center)
“Exodus” by Leon Uris
“A tale of love and darkness” by Amos Oz
“Start-up nation” by Dan Senor and Saul Singer
