No Way Back

This morning we visited Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek, where one of our instructors, Lydia, lives. I've mentioned her in earlier posts, but I'll give a quick summary of her: she's British, and emigrated to Israel in the 1960s. She's an educator and guide for Givat Haviva, the organization that runs my Arabic program. She's got a sharp tongue and curses about every other sentence, but it's great coming from a British lady of my parents' generation; it breaks down the stereotype of British people being "proper."

Anyway, she gave us a tour of her kibbutz, which is one of the few left in Israel that has not been privatized; so, for example, if you live on this kibbutz, you could be a doctor or a gardener, and you give your salary to the kibbutz, but you get all these great services that you don't have to worry about paying for (although technically it comes out of your salary), like 3 really healthy meals a day, laundry service, the dentist, swimming pool, library, etc. plus pocket money (she gets $36,000 shekels) for the year. 

We met two gentlemen who also live on the kibbutz: a man named Abi, who showed us a small museum which used to be a guardhouse, and another man named Elisha, who was very funny; I wish I had taped him speaking. Both men told us about growing up on the kibbutz, and how their parents or grandparents had established it back in the early 1900s (the teens and twenties), when the kibbutz was just a group of tents amidst marshland.

What was interesting to me is how these old dudes talked about themselves or their parents (it seemed that Abi was younger than Elisha) playing with Arab kids from the nearby villages when they were little, and how after the 1948 war (and perhaps the 1967 war too, I can't recall exactly), these kids moved away and became refugees, primarily in Jenin, an autonomous city and refugee camp in the nearby West Bank). When Elisha was grown, he got in touch with one of his old playmates (now grown of course), an Arab guy who was living in Jenin. The friend wanted to come back to the kibbutz and see what remained of his old village. Elisha told him there was nothing left; where the village used to be was just a field for cows, and Elisha thought it wasn't worth it.

However, the friend still wanted to come, so he visited Elisha. They had coffee, chatted, and Elisha showed him the field. The friend asked, "Where is the vegetable garden, the houses?" And Elisha replied, "I told you, there's nothing here."

Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek was founded on the ideology of the Hasomer Hatzair movement, which believes that Israel must strive for peace between Arabs and Jews in order for the state of Israel to exist. For more info, check out wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashomer_Hatzair

Considering this fact, Lydia asked Elisha a touchy question: how does he feel about the fact that the Arab families in the nearby villages left, and that part of the kibbutz sits on land that used to be part of one of the villages (or perhaps several, I can't recall this exactly either). Elisha said there isn't a day that goes by that he doesn't think about it.

The title of this post comes from something Abi said (he was the first old guy), when Lydia asked him about making peace between Arabs and Jews. He said, "No way back." I think he meant, we can't go back in time, so we have to deal with what's happening now. 

Abi in front of the museum, which was a guard house before.

An old bread slicer.

Toys that kibbutz children used to play with.

A bird's eye model of what the kibbutz used to look like.

Abi pointing out a map of how the kibbutz fit in strategically during the 1948 war of independence, known to Palestinians as the "nakba" or "disaster."

A door leading to the water system, but it used to be a place for storing and hiding firearms. The British, who ruled Israel/Palestine from 1917 to 1948, didn't allow the Jews to officially possess weapons.

Uniforms worn by early soldiers and settlers.

Another model of the early kibbutz.

An old film camera.

An olive grove.

A memorial for the father of some children who live on the kibbutz. I think the father died in the Yom Kippur War (1973).

A view from the memorial.

Lydia in front of the memorial area.

Way down below in the center, there are beekeepers.

Irises!

We visited Lydia's home. She had so many neat sculptures in her front garden!

Lydia translating for Elisha, who only spoke Hebrew and some Arabic. He is 86.

Lydia often got frustrated with Elisha because he would go off topic or talk a long time before giving her a chance to translate. It was pretty funny. She'd clap him on the shoulder and say, "Stubborn bastard!" But it's all in good fun. I mentioned before that she curses a lot, which I like.