HOLIDAY IN ISRAEL—II Amateur kibbutznik in the kitchen

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32460, 21 November 1970, Page 13

HOLIDAY IN ISRAEL—II Amateur kibbutznik in the kitchen

Most of my ideas of the Israeli kibbutz or cooperative farm were, I have to admit, way out of date. I had expected a stark, utilitarian settlement where work under the blistering sun never ended and living conditions were downright primitive. Why I was quite so keen to submit to such a Spartan existence escapes me. So my arrival at Kibbutz Ayelet Hashachar was an eye-opener for me. Its luxury swimming pool and its neat blocks of flats with tidy gardens, laid out round tree-shaded expanses of positively British-looking green lawn, were totally unexpected. It was a bit like a garden suburb—or even a holiday camp. Nina, the pleasant, greyhaired German woman who was in charge of the volunteers’ living-quarters, showed me to by room. It was at the end of wooden row of four, the remains of kibbutzniks’ dwellings of earlier, less prosperous times, with white walls and red woodwork. It had two beds, a large bookcase, table and chairs. Nina issued me with tea and biscuits, “tide you over until you get coupons for the shop.” She explained that I would also get free cigarettes and pay of a lira (about 2s 4d) for each working day. My fellow volunteers were all in their late teens or early twenties. They came from almost every country in Europe and North America. Some were students on working holidays; others, like myself, were temporary fugitives from Western home comforts. Working gear I shared my room with an Irish nurse called Pat who arrived on the same day. When she realised our immediate neighbours were all boys, she said: “What would my mum say? If this were Ireland, they’d keep the boys on the other side of the kibbutz, and make sure they stayed there.” Someone told me later that Nina had been surprised when an unmarried couple had asked for separate lodgings instead of the room she had allocated them. Next day I was kitted out

in second-hand blouse and shorts, and heavy, lace-up boots, the supremely unflattering female kibbutz working gear. (Off duty, the clothes of both sexes on the kibbutz would not draw a second glance in Britain, though it is rare to see a man in a suit, and ties are practically unknown.) I had imagined myself getting a sun tan picking oranges, but again I was disillusioned. There was no work for volunteers in the fields and orchards at the time; in any case, the kibbutz preferred to keep girls in the “service” jobs. I was sent to .work feeding damp sheets into a giant roller press in the laundry, the most boring job I have ever done. To my relief, I was soon moved to the kitchen where I helped prepare mountains of vegetables for the communal dining room. Working in the kitchen had its “perks” like coffee instead of the weak tea everyone else drank at breakfast, which we ate two hours after starting work at 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. on an empty stomach. Food' was more or less European. Breakfast and dinner eggs, salad and yoghourt were the most monotonous meals, but there was always a meat dish for lunch. The nearest I got to fruit picking was grading and packing pears. Socialist, rule Chaim, the Russian who was in charge of our welfare, gave us a round-up every week of Israel and kibbutz news, and explained the kibbutz set-up. This one was founded more than 50 years ago by pioneers mainly from Russia and Central Europe. Now it has about 800 members, half of them children, who become full members at 18. Like all kibbutzim, it is run on socialist principles by a weekly “Parliament' meeting of all members. Main money-makers are the huge apple crop (which everyone works uncompensated overtime to harvest) and the five-star kibbutz guest house, haunted by wealthy American tourists. Cliff Richard, whose songs go high in the Israeli charts, stayed there overnight and treated us and some of the younger kibbutzniks to a sing-song by the pool. Some members have outside jobs, but never see a lira of their pay which goes

straight into the communal funds. In fact, the average kibbutznik does not handle money at all in his day-to-day life. The kibbutz takes care of all his needs; these include annual holidays which are sometimes taken abroad. I asked Chaim why he had chosen to live in a kibbutz rather than a town. He said: “I was brought up in Soviet Russia and brainwashed against capitalism from an early age.” He thought kibbutz society was as near ideal as humanly possible and added, grinning, that he did not see why the whole of Israel should not eventually consist of kibbutzim. He may have been pulling my leg —• I suspect most Israelis would think that notion either hopelessly Utopian or just plain crackpot. After seven weeks at Ayelet Hashachar, I wanted to see more of the country. So I left to join a Scots friend, Carol Sutherland of Glasgow, at another kibbutz, half the size of Ayelet Hashachar and not so wealthy, called Hanita in western Galilee. Carol had signed on for a six-month Hebrew course which was being run there. Stay extended Though I had originally intended to stay in Israel only for three months, I decided to take the course too. I did not feel three months was going to be enough to satisfy my curiosity about the country and if my stay was to be extended, I might as well leam the language. Hanita, founded in 1938, stands on a thickly afforested hillside, overlooking the Mediterranean, with a breathtaking view down the coast to Haifa, 18 miles south. The next hill to the north, with the white church tower of a Christian Arab village rising above its ridge, is Lebanese territory. This was before the Middle-East cease-fire, but their frontier situation did not appear to worry the kibbutzniks at least, not at the time of my arrival. There had not been an attack since the War of Independence in 1948, I was told, and the Lebanese villagers we could see with their flocks from the top of Hanita hill, minded their own business. True, the kibbutz was building new bomb shelters with government aid, but as one wit remarked: “That’s so we’ll have somewhere to put the Jordanians up when they arrive.”