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What do you call a Friendly Israeli?

At the beginning of 1999 I had some money saved and a few months to spare. I pretty much wanted to go everywhere in the world so I'm not entirely sure what made me pick Israel. I knew very little about Middle Eastern politics despite (or maybe because of) my degree in Politics. I was nursing a half-baked interest in socialism, anarchy and communal living, having had an introduction to the squatter's life in Berlin. The idea of the kibbutz was always intriguing. I knew they'd been set up in the early 20th century as a social experiment, and it was in the 30s and 40s when socialist Jews were expelled to Palestine from Europe and brought with them the hopes of building a socialist Jewish motherland that the idea was adopted as a means of settling rural areas in this new state of Israel. I'd heard also that the kibbutzim were changing in modern Israel, that they were becoming less communal and more occupied with making money. So on a January whim, I booked a ticket to Tel Aviv, not knowing quite what to expect, not knowing that for the next 3 months I would be pumped full of new ideas, politics and emotions.

Before checking in for an El Al flight at Gatwick, the traveller must go through a rigourous safety check with efficient, brusque Israeli policemen. I've never been so thoroughly questioned by anyone in my life. The detail of the interview was scary. The more they asked me leading questions and tried to ascertain the likelihood or extent of my anti-zionist leanings, the more paranoid I became that I actually was an Arab terrorist.

At my hostel in Tel Aviv, I was quickly befriended by a crowd of hard-core traveller types who lived temporarily in Israel and Egypt for the winter partying, sunbathing and occasionally working in slightly suspect employment as underwear models or club hostesses. I was invited to stay at least until the full moon party at the weekend but I'd had enough of that kind of hanging out in Berlin and I was on a mission.

Next morning as i walked along the seafront looking for the kibbutz office, I was amazed by the strange mix of what I'd imagined the Middle East would be and the sheer Westernness of it all, with an emphasis on the latter rather than the former. Beneath the surface of smart Israeli streets were disorganisation and chaos reminiscent of places further East: rich, well-groomed ladies walked poodles past felafel shop, back alleys. It strikes one immediately that this Zionist paradise was plonked roughly on the edge of an Arab world.

In the kibbutz office I was welcomed and well-informed about what I was intending to do. I was nonplussed at the descriptions of the work I'd have to do, but the espoused ideals of community and togetherness sounded exciting, just the kind of society I was looking for. I quickly signed on the dotted line and picked my kibbutz at random, not really knowing what to look for in my choice. I was bound for a kibbutz in Upper Galilee.

As I made my way North on the wonderful, efficient, cheap, Israeli bus service I was introduced to the erstwhile and at first terrifying presence of the Israeli military. Boys my age with huge machine guns slung over their shoulders! Not far off on a distant hill, but sitting next to me on the bus! It's shocking for the first time visitor but understandable once you realise the relationship in Israel between the army and society in general. Every Israeli boy serves three years compulsorily in the army (one and a half for girls) and also a month of every year until the age of 45. For a tiny country, hated by all its neighbours but funded by the West, the military option is the only means to secure its existence.

I arrived in Israel in search of a peaceful, socialist paradise. How could I have imagined it would be that simple? As if the kibbutzim could magically detach from their hostile environment and exist in a cocoon of touchy-feely goodwill to all men.

Immediately you arrive on the kibbutz, the social structure strikes you. Volunteers are officially welcomed as friends of Israel and a chance to lend an air of international friendliness to the rural community. Unofficially, they're seen as bloody nuisances who drink too much and corrupt the young kibbutzniks, but a cheap form of labour and so, tolerated. Most kibbutzniks are rather shy and rarely speak to the volunteers. We had some young kibbutznik friends but not many, so from the outset the group of 12, or so, other volunteers became my main social support, my gang. the girls lived in one house and the boys lived next door. The kibbutz is quite open plan and while families generally live together in individual houses, most meals are eaten communally in the dining hall and many of the resources of the kibbutz are communal: cars, bikes, library, laundry pool. You are allowed to have individual possessions but the emphasis is on sharing and community.

We received about twenty pounds pocket money per week, in coupons for the shop, and didn't have to worry about food or rent, so it's interesting to see how people react when the concept of money is more or less removed and their whole value system is changed. Most of the volunteers were generous with their energy and material goods. Some had a hoarding mentality and difficulties sharing the communal possessions fairly, but the social structure is such that people's foibles can be tolerated. The kibbutz is primarily a caring society and it's for this reason that many concentrarion camp survivors still live on kibbutzim, having found life too difficult without strong community support.

At times it all felt too institutional for me. I would childishly break a rule at random, just to assert my individuality. Of course, to create a strong social structure we have to accept a lot of compromise and a certain loss of individuality. Coming from a society reasonably well committed to capitalism, this did take some adjustment.

The thing that continually irked me was the expectation of a kind of emotional community. It would be  presumed, for example, that you would be open with everybody, telling everyone where you were going and why, what you were thinking and feeling at all times. I'm sure there's a valid enough social theory behind this, similar to the economic one, that if the responsibility is shared, it makes for less pressure on the individual. This is all very interesting in first year sociology classes but living it is another matter. It's nice to say we should all cooperate and live peacefully, but the truth is that hardly a day went by in my three months on the kibbutz, when somebody's petty quarrel wasn't played out as if on a stage for all to observe. This often made me uncomfortable and nervous. I know I was missing an element of trust in my fellow humans, but, in any case, I found this intensity unbearable at times.

It seemed also as if, in the absence of everyday financial worries, people were given to idle gossip and agonising over trivialities. Kibbutzniks are notoriously sensitive and easily offended but the flip side of this is that they are genuinely caring and involved in other people. The society is everything and everybody works towards the common aim of making it as pleasant as possible for everyone. The kibbutz motto is: "to each according to his needs and from each according to his means".

Besides the intensity of team living, life on the kibbutz is extremely pleasant. Most people wander around barefoot and nobody cares about how he's dressed. Children are everywhere and treated with respect and love by parents who have time and energy to be with them. I can't recall hearing a child cry and I certainly never heard an adult shouting at a child in my time there.

Everybody has a place on the kibbutz, what he gives to society. I was considered too lazy to work in the orange fields and so, was put in the laundry folding clothes. My coworker, Hannah, was an elderly woman, a typical "my-son-the-doctor", Jewish mother, who had grown up in Austria. So we had conversations in German where she told me all about her grandchildren and kibbutz gossip. Someone had told me that she'd survived Auschwitz and her I.D. number tattoo was still plainly visible on her arm, but somehow it seemed churlish to ask questions about her past, so I never did. Until one morning she asked me if I'd seen the Kosovan refugees on television. She said it depressed her to see that kind of thing again and we spoke about what had happened to her during the war. I was completely overwhelmed by her history, but these stories are everywhere in Israel and woven into the fabric of everyday life.

My boss in the laundry, Rachel, was a stern but totally lovable woman in her 60s who spoke only a small amount of English  but was a great fan of the film 'Gone with the wind'. I was supposed to work until 3pm but most days she would send me home before two, shouting at me across the folding tables : "Go home now Laura. After all, tomorrow is another day". And I would saunter across the kibbutz to the volunteers' house for a hectic afternoon's lazing in the sun.

We never did much at the volunteers' house. A lot of time was spent on the lawn outside, chatting, sleeping or smoking fruit tobacco from a hookah pipe. We had to get up every morning for work at seven and drank cheap vodka most evenings so the afternoons were usually quiet. Sometimes we took a walk through the fruit fields to swim in the river and if we were running out of vodka a delegation would be sent off hitching to the nearby town. If we ran out of mixer, we had a highly trained delegation to send to the fruit fields to steal bagfuls of oranges, for the squeezing of. Life was very peaceful and, in many ways, ideal. We were bored, in the way that any group of twentysomethings with buckets of energy would be, living out in the country with no real entertainment. Weekends were short but brilliant. Friday evenings everyone finished work early and gathered for a special meal in the dining hall. Then we went to the kibbutz pub/disco for a gathering of all the young people from the area. This was our one chance for socialising as we knew it and we usually made excellent use of it! Saturday is Shabbat and, although my kibbutz was secular, it was still a day of rest. Sometimes we made excursions at the weekends but hitching or bus arrangements were always difficult: Israelis take their Shabbat very seriously and for most people it is strictly a day for relaxing, especially as the working week begins again on Sunday morning.

For the most part, my only contact with the political problems of the Middle East was talking to people and reading newspapers. However, one day we heard that an Israeli general had been killed by the Hizbollah in the then Israeli-occupied strip of Lebanon. Their revenge had been to attack Hizbollah forces. Our kibbutz was right on the Lebanese border so this news was worrying for us. The Hizbollah use old, Soviet rockets called Katushya which are so unreliable that, if they decided to bomb the nearby town in retaliation, we might be unlucky enough to take a hit by default. We had to spend the night in a bomb shelter. I felt sick. I thought I knew all about conflict, coming from Ireland, but I knew nothing. We took our vodka and our sleeping bags and pretended it was a normal evening, just underground. But it was the most awful, abnormal experience of my life. It didn't feel like we were in direct danger but nearby, people were killing each other and it made me feel miserable. Coming out in the morning, I expected to find the aftermath of World War 3, but of course it was just another flare of anger in an ongoing dispute and life carried on as before.

Overall, I had a wonderful stay in Israel. I began to have some understanding of the history and politics of the country and I met lovely people. Israelis have a good sense of enjoyment and know how to relax after working hard all week. They are however, remarkably difficult to make friends with. Most of the older immigrants from Europe were very chatty and of course, the younger ones we had parties with were great fun. Besides that, it seemed everyone else was doing his best to ignore us, most of the time.

What DO you call a friendly Israeli?

As if.

by
Laura Mackey
13th April 2001

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