june 15, 1999

upper galilee, kibbutz machanayim

alright. now well-armed with millennia of bloody middle eastern history, i bus

my way up north to the refreshingly green and fertile upper galilee, right on

the southwest border of the also lovely but beleaguered golan heights. i’ve

found another” servas” host, and i’m really looking forward to spending a couple

of days on a real live kibbutz. i’ve heard about these idealistic, hard-working

places for most of my life, having american friends spend summers working in the

fields – planting trees, shepherding animals, falling in love, staying on in

“eretz yisrael” (land of israel). the kibbutz is one of the sites where the

state of israel was forged, the great social experiment, making the arid desert

green, communal living, zionism, sweat, labor, hard work, and love. children

brought up not by mother and father, but by the community. no individual

ownership of property: land, homes, things. not my car, but our car. marxism in

practice. the pre-eminence of the israeli labor union, “histra dut”.

my servas hosts, eran and rivka, have lived at the kibbutz machanayim for almost

fifty years. now in their seventies, their children grown and no longer living

on the kibbutz, these two are obviously lifers and seem quietly proud of their

still-working communal home. as soon as i arrive, eran shows me to my guest

quarters, a self standing unit, complete with shower, kitchen, and total

privacy. next we go to lunch – kibbutz style. eran escorts me into the communal

dining room. it reminds me of my high school lunch room. large, practical dining

tables, various old time kibbutzniks scattered about, we go through a cafeteria

style line and take what we want from the ample variety of cooked and fresh

foods: salads, casseroles, meats, vegetables, desserts. eran pays with an

automatic credit card and makes sure to tell me how inexpensive the meal is

compared to “normal” prices off the kibbutz.

after lunch i get a tour of the kibbutz: the farm land, the factories, schools,

assembly rooms, swimming pool, the well laid out grounds. we sign up for a

communally owned car, but the previous driver is over ten minutes late in

returning it, and eran grumbles something about “lack of responsibility”. he

tells me about the “old days” when there were over a five hundred families

living here, when he was agricultural manager of the entire kibbutz, when

children laughed and played all around the grounds, and when hundreds of foreign

travelers volunteered to be part of the thriving kibbutz experience. but now i

sense the sound of regret in his voice, the sound of an experiment whose time

has passed. he tells me the kibbutzim are “in a time of crisis”, their

populations dwindling, their children leaving to the lure of the cities, their

produce no longer competitive — “not because of the quality, but because of

international capitalism and prescriptive economics”. i hear the sound of a man

wrestling with the conflict between his idealism and reality.

eran returns home for an afternoon nap, and i stroll around the quiet grounds in

the afternoon heat. i take a swim in the empty pool. i get a few questioning

looks by suspecting neighbors. what i see is a mostly gray-headed,

family-oriented, senior community living entrenched in its past. whereas kibbutz

life was at one time about youth, passion, freedom, invention, cooperation, and

community, it now strikes me as a rather conventional, conservative, and even

conformist one. i don’t see or hear much open mindedness. i hear that “there is

no one to talk to in the peace process”; that “peace treaties with arabs are

meaningless”; that “you have to fight for your existence”. i hear that modern

cities are ruining the israeli youth, that children who grew up at machanayim

and the neighboring kibbutzim in the fertile hula valley no longer want to work

so hard – with cows, with deciduous trees, in factories – that they want money,

freedom, choice, individuality.

i can understand the disappointment in eran’s voice, even a trace of bitterness.

i did not live through a lifetime of war and self defense; i did not selflessly

dedicate myself to a lifetime social and agricultural experiment that

miraculously succeeded against the opposition of an arid desert and hostile arab

neighbors. i have not seen the tenuousness of peace and the stubbornness of war.

i have not sacrificed myself for idealism and survival. what do i really know of

life on a kibbutz, lived and carved out in the land of israel? of survival in

the heat of the desert, in the shadow of the threatening golan heights? yet —

despite my own empathetic and idealistic heart, i can not help but see a

somewhat rigid, antiquated, and anachronistic community. one whose very

language, ideas, and age make it a conservative, protectionist, and

backward-looking sector of society. in some odd way, the kibbutz-niks here at

machanayim remind me of orange county californian republicans. maybe not in

their left-leaning politics or their socialistic economics, but somewhere deeper

– in their psyches, in their pride, in their fixity and seeming closed

mindedness. i mean, who knows, maybe it’s the similarity of the intensity of the

sun and all the citrus fruit…

of course, i’m being glib, and who i am to pass judgment on these people —

especially after such a ridiculously brief and gracious visit? i feel guilty and

hyper-critical in doing so. my mother always told me, “if you don’t have

something good to say, don’t say anything at all.” but perhaps call it

traveler’s instinct; i just experience and reflect. i try to open myself to a

culture, a land, its people — and i try to see. i’m sure i bring my own ethos

and prejudice to it, but this is what i see and sense here. enough said; let

these camels lie.

june 16,

the golan heights

the next day, at eran’s and rivka’s suggestion, i rent a car and take their

customized day tour of the golan heights. i’m told that this may be a rare last

chance to do so. what with the ongoing negotiations between eternal enemies,

israel and syria, coming under more and more international pressure, it’s really

unknown how much longer this fruitful, abundant land will remain under israeli

jurisdiction. one hundred thousand syrians were chased from the israeli-annexed

golan in 1981, and since that time, hotly contested issues over water rights,

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historical occupancy, defense lines, and power of sovereignty continue to

provide ongoing, seemingly irresolvable challenges to the normalization of peace

and diplomacy between the nations. israeli settlers of this wide-open,

free-flowing land know their tenancy is fragile at best.

i first drive straight north from machanayim along the biblical jordan river to

the “good fence” israeli-lebanese border town of metulla. the miles and miles of

mostly unattended barbed wire are a constant reminder of the gossamer peace

along the border, which at any time, can erupt into yet another round of

“katushya” fire and death on either side of this seventeen year old war. but

today, gentle winds sweep along the long grasses to the tune of an ancient song,

and all seems tranquil and idyllic. i roam aimlessly around the high fields and

rolling hills blooming with wild flowers; i mean, what’s to fight about?

nimrod’s fortress

next, i drive straight east, into the golan, back across the jordan, and into

the nature preserve at tel dan. i learn that a “tel” is a geological site, a

mound, under which archaeologists have discovered layers and layers of

civilization. here at tel dan, and at others nearby like tel hazor (where joshua

supposedly conquered and slaughtered the canaanites), one can again trace the

history of the entire land through layers of pre-canaanite, israeli, and

assyrian artifacts. from canaan to joshua to solomon to alexander to herod to

richard-the-lion-hearted to sala ahdin to mameluk to ottoman to balfour to ben

gurion, where mortars now noisily explode over the modern-day israeli-lebanese

border with a numbing and unpredictable irregularity, life simply goes on for

the ever-changing citizenry of the land. canaanites, jews, assyrians, druse,

muslims, lebanese – all living in the plateau of the golan heights and its

fertile hula valley – each tribe/nation/culture watching one regiment of

soldiers defend the land, attack, and replace the another, over the march of

time, over the course of middle eastern civilization. in a land of abundance,

under the constant sky of uncertainty.

but this afternoon, under the clear blue golan sky, tel dan is a green forest

of natural beauty. sitting at the foot of snow-capped mt. heron at the height of

the golan, the preserve is a beautifully tended landscape of fresh rushing

mountain water, breathtaking, almost jungle-like views, pungent forest smells,

and a florid symphony of bird calls. one can actually imagine the garden of eden

itself (as one of the groves is aptly named) here at this sanctuary. amidst such

magnificent splendor and greenery, it’s almost impossible to remember that this

is what the fight is about. water. this same cold, free-flowing golan water is

what makes the orchards grow, the livestock breed, the kibbutzes and villages

alive. it is also the same water that is piped hundreds of miles away into the

arid negev, and the same water that is coveted by the jordanians, the syrians,

and the lebanese. in the parched, sun-baked mideast, this is what neighbors

fight about.

on to banyas, the arab name for the roman-built site of worship

to pan, pagan, then greek god of nature and shepherds. now a state run park, on

one side of the road there is a three mile winding path down along the golan

cliffs to a spectacularly towering waterfall. on the other, there is the actual,

wind-carved cave of pan, impressively embellished with relics of doric and

corinthian columns, shards of elaborate roman statuary, and ceremonial human

impressions carved right into the cliffs themselves. i can feel the power and

significance of the site, see the dominance of herod’s palace above, sense the

importance of this place as a strategic trade route between ancient jerusalem

and damascus. of course today, everything is well-tended and commercialized.

trinkets and souvenirs at every turn. i go to the little gift shop and buy an

empty plastic bottle that reads: “holy water from the river jordan”. i walk over

to a tiny fresh running stream. i bend down, and fill my cup. it runneth over. i

cap it and put it in my knapsack. am i now an official pilgrim?

on to “nimrod’s fortress”, high above the golan, looking north and west towards

lebanon, west over syria. this restored embattlement, again today a state park,

was built right into the mountainside in the 13th century by saladin’s nephew

nimrod, as a crucial military fortification between north and south, east and

west. looking out onto the sprawling and vulnerable valleys below, one can again

sense the critical importance of these same golan heights for modern day israel

and syria. yet tonight – right here at nimrod’s fortress – as is par for the

course in this convoluted, contradictory land – will be the all-night golan

heights blues festival, most probably featuring young ravers on “e”, as opposed

to young ayyubids and seljuks

with scimitars and slaughter on their minds.

i start making my way back towards my kibbutz. i drive through the quiet druse

villages of madjal shams and ein quena. i look in my servas book, and i find a

“day host”. i call, and i’m invited over by hassan, his wife and two children.

we sit on the floor of his hillside, white plastered home, and share a meal.

strange beans, humus, and salads – very delicious. i ask him about this

mysterious religion/culture called “druse”. although no longer practicing, he is

very open about it. he informs me that the practices, the religion itself, an

offshoot and subsect of islam, is not secret, as is commonly thought. rather,

the very existence of the religion has been traditionally kept secret among

muslims who didn’t accept this heretic faith and henceforth historically

persecuted its followers. hassan tells me that the druse patriarch is jethro,

father of the wife of moses, and that the holy center of the religion is a

little town west of tiberius called ha’in. i learn that the druse holy book is

not the koran, but the “hikna”, or book of wisdom. traditional druse, whose men

i see wrapped in white turbans and wearing long bushy mustaches, worship not in

a mosque, but in a “chalwa”. they worship allah once or twice a week, but not

his prophets moses, jesus, or muhammed.

i take my leave very gratefully and politely, as seems the custom, and continue

my drive across the golan onto the high plain looking north into syria towards

damascus. (i have discovered that any plans i had to visit beirut or damascus

must be abandoned because of the telltale israeli stamp i’ve gotten on my

passport in crossing the egyptian border at eilat. damn!) i stop at the deserted

syrian town of quneitra and wonder what will happen to this harsh and beautiful

land once the israelis must seemingly and inevitably return it to syria. i pick

up three teenage israeli hitchhikers and drive them south back towards the sea

of galilee and their neighboring mall. the two girls are dressed like madonna,

circa 1985, and the boy is a very good luke perry imitation. they chit chat and

squeal to each other in hebrew. i feel very old.

to be continued….

                                                                         

            art by sakhovich larisa
http://www.jafi.org.il/aliyah/gallery/graphic_arts.html




Middle East, 1999, chapter 17, the kibbutz on the golan heights
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