Kibbutz- Neot Samader

My introduction to kibbutz came through my guidebook and a pastor family friend who told me that if i want to understand Israel, i should spend some time in the kibbutz. In addition to my interest in sustainable organic agriculture, i was fascinated by their communal living in which they share their work, meals and leisure with everybody else. Although i wasnt sure about the Zionist aspect of kibbutzim after meeting a Palestine guy who told me about all the injustices done by the state of Israel, most of the people i met at my kibbutz Neot Samader were kind and sympathetic people and I had great two and half weeks in the middle of the Negev Desert in southern Israel.

After flying to Cairo from Berlin via London, I spent a day in Cairo and took a night bus to Taba crossing to get to Eilat, Israel’s southern resort town embracing the Red Sea. Then I had to take another bus to where my kibbutz is and i was a little surprised when the bus driver dropped me off in the middle of a desert. Like the Dutch who have created land out of the sea, Israelis tamed nature and created fertile green pastures from inhospitable desert and I was really impressed by this transformation. (Israelis have one of the best irrigation technologies in the world and China is trying to replicate Israel’s battle against desertification at home albeit without much success.) Although this kibbutz was only twenty years old, they had achieved so much most notably a gracefully towering arts and crafts center that just opened a few years ago (even the president of Israel had paid a visit to this arts center and praised it).

I was incredibly tired as i had spent the last two nights on the airplane and then on the bus, and I was free to roam by myself on my first day and just observe the various works going on in the kibbutz. My roommate turned out to be a Jewish guy from Uruguay who did not like claiming his Jewish identity (it doesn't mean he was uncomfortable with his Jewishness- he just didn't like labels- "I’m Jewish for politicians sake" he would say- and he also had healthy disrespect for the government-established holidays). Matillas was also an incredible musician and composer, and we had great time together.

As my work started the next day, I began to form an interesting relationship with work. I had not worked since I left the Mother Teresa House in India about three months ago, and my initial reaction to hard manual labor was close to repulsion. Our work would start at 6am, and we worked till 8am breakfast, and then again from 9am-1pm till lunch and in the afternoon from 2-5pm. (For the residents, the hours would be longer as there are a lot of meetings that the residents of the kibbutz have to attend as all kibbutz decisions are made unanimously- it's a very full time job living in a kibbutz) The hours felt long and for the first few days, it was the company of others that kept me going. Fortunately, there were five nineteen year old guys (two girls from Germany, three guy from the US, the UK, and Israel) whom I could hang out with. There were also other volunteers I could talk to and most residents were gregarious and spoke very good English. There were about 200 people in the kibbutz- around 100 residents, 60 kids and 40 volunteers- although sometimes the line between residents and volunteers was not very clear (if you had been there for over 3 months, should you count as a volunteer or a resident?)

When volunteers first arrive at a kibbutz, they rotate work for the first couple of days and i did everything from picking nectarines, sorting them sout (it felt interesting to be part of a chain of the huge capitalist economic system as the goods from Neot Samader were sold in organic markets all across Israel and Europe), cleaning the wine machines, putting stickers on the organic yogurt bottles and expiration dates on apricot sweets, cutting garlic and putting them in bundles, cutting pumpkin and other vegetables for 200 people, cleaning metal works (I polished a tiny bronze thing with sandpaper for two hours which was a little frustrating), and doing dishes at the restaurant (again sometimes for 2 hours straight- but I wouldn’t complain as I got free date ice cream and cake at the restaurant.)

One of the guys said all the work is meditative, but for me, it was more mind-numbing. I knew human mind is an amazing machine and we can train our attitudes (St. Paul taught to be content regardless of the condition one is in, and Buddha spent his lifetime refining his attitude to reach peace and equanimity) but is it really possible to be content doing the same manual work over and over again? I was only there for little over two weeks but what about the guys who had been there for twenty years since the beginning- these people were educated intelligent people too and some of them seemed to genuinely enjoy manual work. For me, i saw myself as a Greek guy who has to push something up a hill every day but fortunately there weren’t anybody undoing my work.

Nevertheless, around the third day, I began to grow more fond of the work. Perhaps doing more outdoorsy work helped- as I felt really cool climbing date trees that were about 10 meters high (they are palm trees and you can easily step on their bark) and work on date trees (trimming fruits & sawing off branches to use in building huts). It was certainly a lot more adrenaline and it made me feel pretty virile. I no longer wanted my i-pod during work (they didn’t let me have my best friend during my work anyways), and began to enjoy labor for its own sake. But soon this state turned into cycles of enjoying and not enjoying work, and i guess training one's mind is not easy…) I was also reminded of the Marxian critic of capitalism that in today's society with so much specialization, we no longer feel whole as a human being as our work is no longer whole- we are only cogs in a giant machine of production and we often work in isolation. But my work at kibbutz felt wholesome as I rotated every work, particpated in every step of production, and almost always worked socially with others in equal footing.

There are some jobs that were inaccessible to me because of the language barrier. I'd love to have spent some time at the kids center (school) but couldn’t because i don't speak Hebrew, and i think being a waiter would also have been fun too but i needed to be able to speak Hebrew in order to be a waiter. I also wanted to spend some time milking the goats but never got around to doing that. And as all the meetings were conducted in Hebrew, i definitely felt like an outsider as i had no idea what was going on in everyday lunch meetings.

Outside of work, most socializing was done outside in front of the dining hall.
Meals were eaten in silence- although I was never directly told why, I think they want you to figure out why for yourself. (Some said the idea was being one with the food you're consuming and be more in tune with your tastebuds etc- very hippie yes :)- or it’s just more relaxing to eat in silence as everyday work is so arduous. Initially it was awkward as i didn't know where to look while eating- and meals felt really depressing as meals are usually social times in most of the world- but i quickly grew accustomed to the tradition and as the vegetarian food was superb, fresh and healthy, (i espeically enjoyed the fresh goat cheese every morning)- i don’t complain.

Every Friday night before the Shabbat dinner (it wasn’t religious but Shabbat was still a big deal and it was the only meal in which socializing and wine were allowed) - btw, I really wanted to be in Israel during Purim festival- apparently God commanded Jews to drink till they drop during this festival.. :). Before Shabbat, there was a huge dance ceremony in which everyone dressed in white and danced free style to new age trance music. Any adult could partake in the ceremony, and the dance consisted of lot of turning, whirling and dancing in circles. Despite my sprained ankle, I had fun limp-dancing on my last Friday (the first Friday I just watched).

I hurt my foot playing soccer and i was on crutches for the first time in my life. Not being able to run and play sports was a little frustrating (now I understand how the injured athletes feel so it was a good lesson in sympathy), but I found creative ways around it such as going for an awesome long bike ride over a desert mountain.

I should also mention going out with my room mate Matillas & some other friends as one of the most memorable- I don’t remember what we did but it was great time. There was a huge jam session and then we walked around at night looking at the stars and making animal noises in search of camp fire that we never found, and Matillas with his genius musical talents made amazing percussion music on discarded cans and various things.

Will this kibbutz still be around in the years to come? Many kibbutz are dying out or becoming privatized- and I heard this ones was also not doing terribly great economically- but there didn't seem to be much social tension that plagues some kibbutz, and there was a large group of a new generation of kibbutz kids who grew up there all their life and were about to go out into the real world- some to the army, some to the university etc- (and they were preparing a puppet play as sort of a 'farewell gift' to the community:) I’d love to visit again and be part of the evolution of this wonderful community.