Visit to a kibbutz

This morning my class went first to an illegal immigration camp called Atlit and then to a traditional kibbutz. Both places were pretty interesting, but I was more interested in the lives of the people at this particular kibbutz--called Mishmar HaEmek (Guard of the Valley) --the first kibbutz located in the Jezreel valley. Maybe it's because we actually got to go inside the house of a man who was born on the kibbutz in the 1920 and listen to him and his wife talk about life there.

This particular kibbutz has kept a lot of its original ideals---for example, everything is still communalized--meals and laundry are both done for you. Everybody has his own job and no one receives "salary", the kibbutz provides for everything including a budget for entertainment and clothes. Effectively, you would never have to deal or worry about money on a regular basis.

Also, Mishmar is special because of the large number of creative people who live there and founded it... highly educated and cultured individuals. Eitan, the man we visited (near 90 years old and still very alive and healthy), works a lot with ceramics. He initiated a shelter for learning crafts and other hobbies... They wanted to provide a place for older kibbutzniks (of retirement age, although there is no retirement there) to be productive and useful to the community. To feel wanted and still a part of life.

In general, every person that walked by seemed genuinely happy. There seems something fulfilling about their way of life--but of course, you have to choose it. You have to be the sort of person that would want to give up owning your own possessions and money for what you consider to be a greater gain.

There was also a children's area--a place to play created by what looked like a neatly organized "junk" yard, lots of random objects that the guide called "educational". Back in the day, children used to sleep in the building, rather than just attend daycare, they had cute little beds and a washroom especially tailored for their height and smallness--the mirrors and toilets were lower to the ground, for example. The idea is to provide a place for hope: children are a great source of hope.

The different facilities--the way they were run, the appearance, the fluidity of it--seemed bizarre, but also very natural. The concepts and ideals seem so far away from the way things are run in America...But at the same time, you could tell everything was intentional and well thought-out, almost ingeniously so. I will have to think more about this; it was really inspiring. It's not for everybody, but when you consider that less than 2% of the population are kibbutzniks, yet these were the primary source of Israel's production in the beginning stages of its statehood, it is an impressive system indeed...