On the Kibbutz

Kibbutz Amir, with its red flag flying next to the Israeli flag, seemed like a the right place for me in 1969. The opportunity to experience utopian politics, brought to life by righteous, Jewish farmers who loved to folkdance — what could be better? I was a kid from a small Connecticut town. What would it be like, I wondered, to live with so many Jews in a place where being Jewish was normal? For me, it was a “goldilocks” adventure, and one that my parents were willing to support.

As the airplane neared the shoreline, a heavyset girl with a thick New York accent screamed, “Look, look, it’s just like a postcard!” My own prejudices surfaced: I was embarrassed by urban and loud, by the people who came to the cottages by Lake Candlewood in the summer. I wanted the Israel of my imagination, not her postcard.

Our crew was assigned to hoe cotton in the blazing sun. It was a terrible, difficult job, and the Israelis knew it. Within an hour some Americans began complaining bitterly, some crying, some angry, and eventually dropping off the field. I kept hoeing, propelled only by the thought that this work was surely better than what enslaved people had been forced into in my own country. One foot in front of the other, trying to avoid the blisters, I made my way down the row.

In the meantime, my American colleagues had arranged for a meeting with the work captain — this assignment was unacceptable, unfair, unkind, etc. They knew how to organize and complain, and as a result, hours were shortened and assignments changed for the remainder of the summer. I was called to the canteen and given the job of delivering chocolate bars and other goodies in a wagon — clearly the cushiest job in town. On occasion I also picked and sorted fruit and helped in the kitchen. It was the closest I have ever come to being “teacher’s pet.”

In our group house, I learned to appreciate my New York teammates. When a basket of eggs, flour, vanilla and butter arrived, they figured out how to rustle up a delicious cake without a recipe. One was studying to be a music teacher and led us in preparing a highly successful presentation for the community. Most found friendship in the group, while I became an acceptable outsider.

Perhaps because my outsider status was evident, I somehow scored many invitations to afternoon teas and conversation. I got to ask questions. I was encouraged to ask questions. Yes, Arabic was being taught at the kibbutz: “We need to learn to talk to one another.” Our kibbutz was in the northern Galilee — we could see Arab territory and our nearest town, Kiryat Shmona, was predominantly Arab. “Our goal is to ‘expand from within’—not to violate borders,“ Shookie told me. “We are a Jewish State because we want to signal that here, Jews can be safe.”

My internal turmoil was never fully resolved. As an American, I was more familiar with the history and culture of the U.S. — both its utopian vision and its essential caste system, which supports political prejudice and personal animus — than with the history and culture of Israel I liked the answers my kibbutz hosts offered to my many questions, but was unsure how closely their ideas mirrored those of the country writ large. And I continued to find the notion of a Jewish State troubling— I wouldn’t want to live in a Christian or a Muslim state, even if it was essentially open and democratic. I worried that the seeds of prejudice were left in place, ready to be watered.

I also thought a lot about what it meant to be an "immigrant by choice." The Israelis on my kibbutz were either born there or had left Eastern Europe fleeing the Nazis or shortly after WWII. I felt ignorant about all of that.

At the end of the summer, I answered questions on a survey about the kibbutz experience sent by Hashomar Hatzair to all program participants. I can’t recall exactly what I said in that survey, but I do recall writing a lot more than my bunkmates wrote.

That winter I got a note from someone in the Hashomar HQ, complimenting me on my “essays” and asking if I had thought about coming to school in Israel, becoming active in the movement, and perhaps considering a political future in government. I thought seriously about going, but finally decided that there was plenty of work to undertake in the U.S., where I knew the language, where my family lived, and where the separation of church and state seemed — at least then — to be constitutionally supported and protected. Meanwhile, the rights of females and persons of color needed expansion and protection — and then there was Vietnam . . .

I am now old enough to look back on those times with some amazement. Motl and Esther and Avram —my favorite kibbutz “tea parents” — are surely all dead, and I cannot imagine how they would react to Netanyahu’s reign and all that has happened since October 7, 2023. In the U.S., Georgia’s Senator Jon Ossoff, a Jew who voted against increased arms for Israel, is suffering a burgeoning lack of support from within the Jewish community. And of course, my “fellow Americans” are rallying around candidates whose interests and concerns are not nearly my own.

Again, I imagine myself as an enslaved individual, watching the drama from afar as I hoe the long row ahead.