Uncle Travelling Matt

Links to other parts of the travelogue:

Sacred Pilgrimage

Secular Pilgrimage

Next part: Beautiful (?) Beersheva

I took a solitary walk across to Beverley Hills and the old Ulpan classroom. As with places where something of historical importance once took place, if I were to put up blue plaques to commemorate the seminal events in my life, then that humble building would certainly be graced with one. Kibbutz Revivim changed my life in many ways, after those unnerving first couple of days when all I wanted to do was jump on a plane back to Britain, I grew to cope and then thoroughly enjoy the kibbutz experience. The most life-changing event of all though, happened almost a month after my arrival, on February 21^st, 1997.

The Ulpan Classroom

Only the day before Elton and Adrienne Netto, fellow volunteers from New Zealand, had invited me to go with them on a day trip to Jerusalem in their camper van. Beyond Tel Aviv and Revivim I had seen little of Israel so I was glad to go. When I got to the van in the morning, I found to my surprise that there were two other travellers already on board, Pepa and Simeon Kovatchevi, a young Bulgarian couple who were on the Ulpan course and also worked part-time with Elton in the factory.[1] They were an engaging couple; she dashingly beautiful and speaking excellent English whilst he had a wicked sense of humour, looked like Charlie Chaplin and loved clowning around. Just as importantly though, they were from behind the Iron Curtain.

This is probably hard for people today, only a decade on, to understand, but for me, being from behind the Iron Curtain was a big deal. I grew up during the Cold War; I vividly remember being told at primary school that the Russians could – and probably would – attack at any time, that shadowy evil men sat with their fingers over the button ready to obliterate us all with the Bomb whenever they felt like it. In all the films that I was weaned on, the Russians were the bad guys, communism = evil, they were a race apart. Now we can – and often do – go to Krakow, Riga, Prague or Berlin for the weekend, back then travel beyond the Wall was virtually impossible. I only knew one guy that had done it, my father, and he had travelled with the UN and possessed three passport stamps for one single crossing of the Berlin Wall.

In addition to all of this, over the preceding few years, as I had become an adult and developed a sense of political identity, I had become a staunch socialist. I wanted to help the less well-off, the rich and their greed and selfishness disgusted me and I longed to make them pay for their crimes, to create an egalitarian paradise on earth where everyone could have what they needed. I was not religious back then, but I was fired by belief, a belief in a better world. My trip to Revivim was a pilgrimage, a secular, socialist pilgrimage. I was living and working on a genuine, real-life commune and now, to top it all off, I was getting to know two genuine Eastern Blockers!

Adrienne, Simeon, Pepa and Elton in Jerusalem

The next day I received a message from Adrienne in the dining room. “It’s Pepa’s birthday today and she’s having a party in the Ulpan room. She wants you to come.” An invite to a party from a woman who was not only Eastern Bloc but also hot; this was the stuff of fantasy! But I was shy back then. “Are you going?” I asked Adrienne. “No, Elton’s got the flu. You’ll have to find somebody else, sorry.” Somebody else? But who? I went for the obvious and asked Tom from Holland, my workmate and roommate. “Ja, I’ll come,” said the Dutchman who was also partial to a drink and beautiful women. And so, we went.

That evening changed my life. There we were, the Dutchman and I, and a room full of partying young people. Only a couple of them spoke English, all of them were from behind the Iron Curtain. Tom felt like a brother to me in both culture and language and that was a revelation. Remember, I am from a village; prior to Israel, virtually everybody in my address book had an ST11 postcode. Only a month before that Dutchman seemed like the most exotic person on earth. That evening though, in comparison with all those Russian-speaking Ulpan students, he seemed virtually English.

They were from everywhere communist: Uzbekistan, Hungary, Bulgaria, Latvia, the Ukraine, Russia, you name a Warsaw Pact country and it had a representative in that room. But at the same time, they were not the shadowy figures who wanted to blow us all up just because they could, they were human beings just like Tom and I. They liked the Beatles and Jamiroquai; they enjoyed a drink and a cigarette, and they loved football. I got chatty with Bela, a drunken Hungarian who liked to exclaim “Dzeezuz Christ!” after everything he said and Pavel, a Ukrainian who knew all the words to ‘Yellow Submarine’, (but struggled with most other things in English). That evening a fascination with the Other, its peoples and cultures, began. It has not abated to this day. I returned to Israel in 1998 and 1999, but it wasn’t to meet up with other volunteers or even Yankalei and Sara, it was to Maja and Andrei Spektor-Kovalsky, a Ukrainian couple; Pavel Serebryakov, the Beatles-lover from Donetsk; Katya Niego, a Sephardi Jew from Haskovo, Bulgaria and Pepa and Simeon Kovatchevi. Friendship with them developed into a desire to travel to their homelands and learn more about their histories. Since that party, I have become almost fluent in Bulgarian, I have lived in Bulgaria for a year and I’ve visited most of the countries of the old Communist World. Without that party in the Ulpan Room, I would probably have done none of those things. I may also not have visited Japan and the Far East and developed the all-consuming passion for travel that now guides my life, for it was the kibbutz experience in general and that party in particular that opened my eyes to the world. That is why, this 2009 pilgrimage to Revivim was a homage to something far bigger than just the kibbutz.[2]

Here of some of the more memorable of the Ulpan students:

Pepa and Simeon who I’ve already mentioned in this account were a young Bulgarian couple who had emigrated to Israel largely for financial reasons. Neither were Jewish but he had a Jewish grandmother which qualified him, (and her if they married), for Israeli citizenship. Their parents however, particularly hers, had been dead against the match since it involved her quitting Sofia University mid-degree, so they’d done a Gretna as it were and then presented the marriage as a fait accompli to their elders after the ceremony. Maybe however, they should have listened to their betters since it wasn’t to last.[3] When I returned a year later, he was making bagels in Eilat and she was sleeping on Katya’s (see below) sofa.[4] For me personally, these two hold a special place in my heart as they ignited an interest in Bulgaria in me that has not waned since. I lost touch with both circa 2004 but I am still in contact with Pepa’s sister Maria who lives in Chicago. Pepa was in London last I heard whilst in 2015 I regained contact with Simeon who now lives in Germany with his new partner and family.

Katya, Simeon, Pepa, me and Irina (?) in the dining hall

Katya was the other Bulgarian. Like Pepa and most other Bulgarian girls, she was very pretty. After Ulpan she moved to Holon. One presumes that she settled better than her compatriots because she was actually Jewish. Certainly, she embraced the Israeli lifestyle far more than they did. I met her again on new Year’s Eve, 1999 when we attended a Shturtsite[5] concert together in Tel Aviv. We are still in touch .

Pavel was the young Ukrainian who spoke no English but loved the Beatles. Later he learnt a modicum of my tongue and I a modicum of his and we drank together in Haifa in 1998 and 1999. I am no longer in touch with him which is a shame since he was a great guy.

Pavel and I in Haifa, 1998

Bela was a Hungarian who liked to drink as much as George and Philippe (see below). Consequently, he spent most of his time with George and Philippe. In the long run he was unimpressed with Israel and returned to Hungary where he resides to this day. Many of the photos in this travelogue were taken by him.

Maija and Andrei were a young Ukrainian couple who moved to Beersheva after Ulpan where I visited them. They were a lovely couple who unfortunately worked far too hard – both had nursing qualifications in the Ukraine that were not recognised by Israel so they had to re-sit them all whilst working full-time in menial, low-paid jobs – which resulted in them separating in 1999 after her ‘friendship’ with an Ethiopian Jew. Sadly Maija, who was the main conduit of communication, stopped writing then, doubtless because only a month before I’d banged on to her when drunk about what a great couple she and Andrei made.

Andrei, Maija and I in Merkaz Klita Ye’elim, Beersheva, 1999

[1] Revivim’s industrial concern is Raviv Plastics, a small factory manufacturing injection moulded items such as car door handles or toothbrushes. I later worked there for a month after I’d finished on the chickens.

[2] I sit writing these words in a classroom full of foreign nationals from homelands as diverse as Holland, Lithuania, Pakistan, Poland and Romania. That’s my job these days and my chosen career is another direct result of my time on Revivim.

[3] Reading my diary, there were intimations that such might happen even on the kibbutz. The entry for Friday 28^th April reads, ‘The disco – Pepa got off with Jan all nite (Simon not there). Elton v. upset.’

[4] See my travelogue, ‘Settling Into Israel’

[5] Bulgaria’s most famous rock band.

Technorati Tags: uncle travelling matt,matt pointon,travel,blog,israelis,israel,kibbutz,revivim,ulpan,iron curtain,warsaw pact,pavel serebryakov,katya niego,pepi kovatcheva,simeon kovatchev,bela kadar

Tuesday, 27 October 2015

Oslo V-log: Day 2

Greetings!

Here, as promised, is part two of my Oslo trip, including one of the rare times when I, in contrast to the other 99% of the population, actually go on holiday and lie on a beach.

Unlike me though, they don't tend to head to Norway in October to do such a thing.

Keep travelling!

Uncle Travelling Matt

Oslo V-log: Day 1

Oslo V-log: Day 2

Oslo V-log: Day 3

My Flickr album of this trip

Check out all my V-logs!

V-log 1: So Uncle Travelling Matt, how many countries have you visited…?

V-log 2: Llangelynin

V-log 3: A Tour Around Schouwen-Duiveland

V-log 4: Draycott-en-le-Moors

V-log 5: Barmouth Cliff Walk

V-log 6: Walking Pilgrimage to Bardsey Island

V-log 7: Crowland, Lincolnshire

V-log 8: Repton, Derbyshire

V-log 9: East to West Berlin

V-log 10: Berlin

Friday, 23 October 2015

Holy Land: Secular Pilgrimage: Part V: Living for the Moment

Greetings!

As most visitors will doubtless have noticed, I posted a V-log midweek, my first in a very long time. In fact, I have been making lots of videos, just not editing them and posting them. Well, slowly that is beginning to change and there’ll be more on the way: Ireland, Scotland and of course North Korea. Behind the scenes, my biggest task this week has been downloading hundreds (literally) of video clips from my DPRK trip which now need editing and sorting. Something for those long winter’s nights indeed, but in the meantime, in case you missed it, please enjoy and share Day 1 of my Oslo trip.

Enjoy and share also my latest offering on Cultured Vultures, this time a brand new story entitled ‘Veritas Girl’. Never one to shy away from controversial subject matters, this one deals with the difficult topic of paedophilia. Once again, please read it, share it with you friends and pop Cultured Vultures on your favourites too!

Keep travelling!

Uncle Travelling Matt

Links to other parts of the travelogue:

Sacred Pilgrimage

Secular Pilgrimage

Next part: Tearing down the Wall!

Back in 1997 I kept a little diary of my days on the kibbutz and so I thought it would be a good idea to pull it out and let it jog my memory when writing this account, expecting to find some fascinating little gems that I’d clean forgotten about. How disappointed was I! Nothing in my possession demonstrates so clearly how different I was back then, how much I’ve changed. The entries are short, bland and of little help to any travel writer. Take this typical offering from 18^th March:

‘Missed brek. Work washing plastic boxes with Si. At night bonfire & vodka nite. V. pissed. Me & Tom did Hotel Calafornia [sic] duet. Di a good laugh (she had shagged Si earlier). Vodka from G-S Philippe.’

You tend to look at yourself as being the same then as you are now, but it’s not the case. In that diary there is no reflection, no attempt at writing and the nearest thing to analysing I found is ‘thought a lot about Orwell’s views on Totalitarianism’ after reading Homage to Catalonia. But then that is what being nineteen is all about, is it not? Living for the moment, having a drink, throwing it up, having some more, lusting after girls who you’ll never sleep with, rejoicing when you’ve found one you will but then getting all nervous about it, finding Jefferson Airplane and Jimi Hendrix unbelievably deep and everywhere and everything is an exotic, random, incredible adventure…

Oh, why can’t we stay like that forever?

Have a drink, then throw it up… oh to be 19!

I am, however, in good company it seems. Patrick Leigh Fermor, one of the greatest British travel writers of all-time wrote his most famous works – A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water chronicling a walk across Europe undertaken when he was eighteen, some sixty years after the event and in doing so he reread an old journal which he had fortuitously recovered from exile in Romania:

‘The first volume of this story tells of a thick green manuscript book I bought in Bratislava and used as a notebook and a journal and finally, five years later, at the outbreak of war, left behind by mistake in a friend’s country-house in Rumania where I was living. A few years ago, after decades of separation, I miraculously got it back, with its green binding bit frayed and faded, but intact. The pencilled journal in it is a great help, but not the unintermittent stand-by it should be. I started it in Slovakia with a long entry for each day; but in towns, thanks to morning headaches perhaps, it was sometimes neglected: and it didn’t always pick up at once when the journey was resumed. The same happened in Budapest and the earlier parts of the ensuing travels. Szolnok, for instance, just has the names of the town and the cheery doctor who put me up: the delicious, boiling hot, scarlet and orange carp soup bursting with paprika we had for dinner is remembered but unrecorded; the rest has gone. Next day mentions ‘Baron Schossberger’ and ‘Pusztatenyö’, a small place about a dozen miles to the south-east. Szolnok itself has left only a shadowy recollection.’[1]

Another change made to the kibbutz, doubtless triggered by laws Health and Safety rather than economic, was the replacement of the rickety homebuilt children’s playground in front of the dining room with a brand-new professionally manufactured one. With little else to do during the day, we took Tom there and introduced him to the exciting world of swings, slides and roundabouts for the first time in his life. Although somewhat wary, he gave them all a go and soon found a new favourite activity. The look on his face when sat at the top of the slide – half-fear, half-joy – I shall treasure forever, though his favourite piece of equipment was a rocking horse on a giant spring. To this day, those are always the first things he heads for when he sees a playground.

Tom on the Revivim Rocking Horse

In the evenings I talked to Yankalei. I asked him about Revivim’s early years and he told me this story: “When we came to the local Bedouin sheikh and asked him if we could buy this land, the sheikh said, ‘Why do you wish to buy it? What are you going to do with it? Keep goats like me?’ ‘No,’ we replied, ‘we will farm it!’ At this the sheikh laughed. ‘Farm it! Can you farm this too?’ he asked, showing us his bare hand and stroking a furrow down the middle of its palm with his finger. ‘I tell you, this land cannot be farmed, there is no water here, it is impossible! Trust me, my people have lived here for generations and never has anyone farmed this land! Buy the land off me if you want, foolish men, but I tell you, within a year you will leave!’”[2]

The rest is, as they say, history.

The Bedouin are, in so many ways, the forgotten people of Israel. Everyone talks about the Palestinians and the Jews but these people are neither Jewish yet have no common cause with the Palestinian Arabs either. Yankalei however, has dedicated his life to them and for many years he was the Labour Party’s spokesperson for Bedouin affairs, and it is well known that he is welcomed in all their tents. That bond of trust that he shares with his Arab neighbours comes in no small measure from his own personal history, for although he was – and still is – a fervent Zionist, his Zionism is of a very different type to that which is commonly discussed in the media. His is the Zionism of those 1950s banknotes, a Zionism which has room for Arab as well as Jew, a Zionism built on material progress and egalitarian principles, not the fulfilment of Biblical law, a Zionism that is a world removed from the Zionism of Moshe Levinger and the Hebron Settlers.

“We looked at the land and said, ‘There is room for both of us here.’ The Arab could stay where he has always lived, in his villages surrounded by olive groves; the Jew would settle on the pieces of land that the Arab did not use. The first Zionists that came went to the malarial swamps by the sea. They drained them and today that area is called Tel Aviv. With Revivim it was the same; there was nothing here before the Jew came, now there are more Bedouin than there was then. We worked hard, it was difficult, but we found a scientist who said that there was water under the desert. That is what we use. It is salt water but you can grow crops with it. Our olive trees have won prizes!”

“But even if the Jew has built this kibbutz himself, he must still be friends with the Arab. This land belongs to the Arab as much as the Jew. It is important for the Jew to speak Arabic as well as Hebrew.”

Yankalei speaks fluent Arabic; it is almost a first language for him. He spent his boyhood in Jerusalem where it was the lingua franca. His family had emigrated from Persia in the early 19^th century and were well-established and respected in the Holy City. With his nut-brown complexion and handlebar moustache, he is as much an Oriental gent as any Arab.

“The Bedouin has always been a friend of Israel; he fights bravely in our army. In 1967 the local sheikh was contacted by the Egyptians. ‘We are your brothers,’ they said, ‘fight for us!’ ‘Maybe you are my brother,’ the sheikh replied, ‘but you are far away and you do not care for the Bedouin. The Jew is here, he is my neighbour and he will be here after you have left. I will fight for him!’ This same sheikh, for many years he was a good friend of Israel, but I will tell you another story about him: In 1999 when King Hussein of Jordan died, he went to Amman to go to the funeral. Anyway, when the sheikh got to the border, the Israelis would not let him through and would not say why. Naturally, he was very angry and so he contacted me. ‘Yankalei, why are they doing this to me? I, who have always been a good friend to Israel!’ I promised to help the best I could so I asked around but no one would give me any information. In the end I called a friend of mine who is very high up in the government and he explained it all. ‘Mossad have received reliable information that certain Arabs are planning to assassinate him at the funeral because he is a friend of Israel. We are not disrespecting the sheikh, we are saving his life!’ Well, I told this to the sheikh and he thanked me and Mossad for their efforts but said that a brother monarch had died and it would sully his honour if he did not attend the funeral. So, he was let through and he went to Amman. When he got to the room, he took out his dagger and pistol, laid them on the table and declared to the crowd, ‘Here I am, an unarmed man! I know that some of you are planning to kill me, well go ahead and do it, but for my honour and the honour of our departed brother here, wait until after the funeral!’ Well, the Arabs were so impressed with his bravery that they did not kill him and instead he died in his bed of old age a few weeks ago. He will be sadly missed, he was a good friend of the kibbutz…”

As I said before, in his speech and appearance, Yankalei was an Oriental gent, akin to any Arab. Yet in so many respects he is also very different, for he has dedicated his life to a secular and modern ideal alien to the Arab mind. Arab society is based on family, it is based on hierarchy, it is patriarchal and it is intensely religious. One can only imagine what the Bedouin must think about Yankalei’s kibbutz where everyone is equal; where there is no hierarchical structure; where women work in shorts and T-shirts in the fields and orchards alongside non-related men; where children are brought up communally whilst their mothers’' work;[3] where marriages are love-matches and where there is no House of God. Is it any wonder that some Arabs refer to the Jews as infidels?!

[1] Between the Woods and the Water, p.60

[2] A somewhat different story concerning Revivim’s establishment is told in Martin Gilbert’s ‘Israel: A History’, p.115.

“It was a chief of the Azazma tribe, Salama Ibn Said, who had sold the land for Revivim to the Jews. A poet from the same tribe, Ayyad Awwad Ibn Adesan, travelled from encampment to encampment reading a poem that he had written opposing the sale of land and criticising both Ibn Said and another chief who sold land to the Jews, Id Ibn Rabia. Adesan warned of the danger of the Bedouin being disinherited from their own space and freedom, and mocked the use to which the chiefs put their new found wealth:

Look at Ibn Said and Rabia, Oh my!

They’ve built houses of stone, painted red and so high!

Their wives stand around in a thin chemise gown,

Fried foods and soft bread are their only renown.

Adesan’s poem also contained a warning:

The land was spacious, yet narrow will be,

You’ll find nowhere to rest ‘tween the hills and the sea.”

[3] As was the case up until the mid 1990s on Revivim. Sara caused a stir when she removed her two daughters from the children’s house and brought them up herself.

Technorati Tags: uncle travelling matt,travel,blog,matt pointon,revivim,kibbutz,youth,bedouin,jews,israelis,israel,arab,zionism,zionist,desert,negev,diary,holy land

Tuesday, 20 October 2015

Oslo V-log: Day 1

Greetings!

It's been a while since we've had one so here's a V-log! Over the next three weeks I'll be posting my videos of my recent Oslo trip. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed eating moose burgers, ogling Munch and paying over two quid for a bottle of water.

Keep travelling!

Uncle Travelling Matt

Oslo V-log: Day 1

Oslo V-log: Day 2

Oslo V-log: Day 3

My Flickr album of this trip

Friday, 16 October 2015

Holy Land: Secular Pilgrimage: Part IV: The Silence of the Desert

Greetings!

I’m back now after a great short break in Oslo, Norway. Whilst not the cheapest city on earth, (I worked out that things there cost roughly double what they do here), it is a fascinating place with lots to see and do. I managed to fit a lot into my three days including checking out Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki, Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” and a meal in Restaurant Schrøder where the famous detective Harry Hole dines.

And do I recommend a trip? Yes, despite the cost, I do. It’s beautiful, fascinating, the sky and colours are unbelievably crisp and clear and the Norwegians speak the best English of any non-native speakers that I’ve come across.

But now back to our main travelogue and a very different country entirely: Israel and more life from the kibbutz in the desert.

Keep travelling!

Uncle Travelling Matt

Links to other parts of the travelogue:

Sacred Pilgrimage

Secular Pilgrimage

Next part: Living for the Moment

Unlike with the first half of the trip, I kept no record of what was done on each individual day on Revivim. Instead they simply merged into one another like some sleepy desert dream. Most of my time though, was spent rediscovering and remembering whilst the evenings were passed talking to our hosts.

Much of the kibbutz was still familiar; the dining room where we volunteers – along with the Ulpan students and the kibbutzniks themselves – had spent hours eating, drinking and discussing the important matters of the day, our travels or, most importantly who was rumoured to have been with who; the laundry where the Thao and I brought our clothes - carefully numbered on the labels in permanent marker – to be washed and pressed and where all the women fussed over Tom; the Ghetto where we had once lived and spent the evenings drinking and singing Bob Dylan, Eagles and Fool’s Garden songs round the bonfire, now deserted and derelict save for a solitary building where the Thai guest workers, (the cheaper and more reliable replacements for the volunteers), now dwell; the old fortified kibbutz of Mitzpe Revivim surrounded by rusting planes and sandbags; Beverley Hills where the other volunteers and Ulpan students lived, (so named because it was much nicer than the Ghetto); the cactus garden overlooking the desert and the Moadon,[1] the coffee shop where we relaxed, fortified with endless refills, National Geographic magazines and backgammon boards.[2]

Gathering around the bonfire with our apartment (far left) in the background

As I wandered around those palm-fronded precincts, the memories came flooding back; of evening walks to Beverley Hills, of lazy afternoons spent lying on the grass and of practical jokes played on other volunteers.[3] All that I had noticed then came back, but this time I noticed something new, something so startling and powerful that I was shocked that I had never even noticed it before.

The silence.

The kibbutz is a peaceful place. There are few cars and fewer neighbours. There is no hurry, no rush, no pressure. It exists in its own little world at its own steady pace. The kibbutzniks are not lazy, far from it, but at the same time they are not stressed like us inhabitants of the dog-eat-dog intensive world. After the noise, pressure, chaos and hatreds of Jerusalem, it was like Heaven, a paradise in which to unwind.

Yet heaven can, at times, be so close to hell. I remember frequent comments by the irate, frustrated volunteers, screaming out that there was a world beyond the high perimeter fence, that this little vacuum-sealed garden – for Paradise is always a garden – was not reality, that it was claustrophobic, incestuous. I remember asking Paul , a lifelong socialist and friend of Revivim, why he had never moved there and his reply surprised me: “Move to Revivim?! I’d go stir crazy within a year! Everyone knows each other’s business, it’s worse than a village! And there’s nothing to do there!” I struggle to agree with him; this place seems so perfect socially, psychologically, ideologically, politically and yet a massive problem for the whole kibbutz movement is that the young often want to leave and rarely find a mate from within the commune.[4] And indeed, had I not got bored of it all after just three months and moved on to pastures new?

I went for a solitary walk out into the desert. I have always enjoyed my own company and my favourite pastime in an evening used to be to strike out across the stony ground for the ruined watchtower that stands on a low promontory to the south-east of the settlement. It was originally built to protect the kibbutz from Arab or Bedouin raids but had long become defunct and now just stands there, a lonely sentry watching out over the wilderness. I would climb up to the top and then sit there on the ramparts and look out over the silent world as darkness descended. There was the kibbutz itself, the newly-planted olive saplings, the date palms (originally intended to be harvested, but now a picnic site), and then the vast stony plain which Nabateans had once traversed and which was now spattered with the tents and goat pens of the Bedouin whose lights twinkled as the sun set. That was then, but now the scene had changed: the olive saplings had grown to full-size trees and the watchtower, one side now crumbled away, sits these days on the edge of a veritable forest which I walked through on my way back.

The watchtower in the desert, 1997 and 2009

Whilst much had stayed the same at Revivim, much also had changed, small changes yet significant. In the dining room these days there is a man on a till who records all that you’ve taken. Gone are the days of true communal living when one took whatever one wanted and it was not written down; now all is measured in shekels even if these are not actually asked for at the point of sale and even if the prices are still greatly subsidised. One of the main reasons behind that change is, I am afraid to say, Sara who would take far in excess of what she and Yankalei needed and then give it her daughters in Eilat and Tel Aviv. One can look at such actions in three ways; one can see her as a mother simply wanting to provide for her children or as a thief, stealing from the other kibbutz members. I however, wonder about a third viewpoint, seeing her as a child who had everything stolen from her, who was moved from place to place, never knowing what the future might hold. Psychologists stress how crucial our formative years are on determining our adult character and so is it not natural that someone with that start in life would wish to grab what she could, to stockpile for an uncertain future and to make sure that her children do not have to go through the same?

The central building which houses the dining room and moadon

Changed too is the Shabbat disco, now a painting studio; the Ulpan classroom, now a volunteers’ common room and the supermarket which has been moved to where the dairy used to be. It is much bigger than it used to be as the kibbutzniks of the 21^st century demand more choice than their predecessors. There are Thai and Russian sections to cater for the guest workers and new immigrants from the former USSR, but it is more costly these days as well. Finally, there is Revivim’s latest commercial development, a zoo just below the cactus garden. We took Tom there and he marvelled at the llamas, birds, camels and monkeys. Along with the Mitzpe Revivim Museum, this points the way to the kibbutz’s future in which desert tourism is seen as a major factor.

[1] Moadon, lit. club (Hebrew).

[2] I learnt backgammon on Revivim, taught by Yankalei (a mean player) on my very first night, my game developed in the moadon. It’s been a useful skill to have, particularly when working in prisons, although the pinnacle of my playing career came in 2002 when I beat the Lowlander in a best of 100 games competition to claim the Long March trophy. See ‘Across Asia with a Lowlander’ for details.

[3] The best being when we kidnapped two hens from the chicken farm and locked them into the toilet of the apartment of two of the girls. The place was not pleasant when they returned from work…

[4] There may be other reasons for that mind. In his psychological study on children who grew up communally on kibbutzim, ‘Children of the Dream, the psychologist Bruno Bettelstein looks at the fact that many kibbutz children have failed to find partners from their peers on the kibbutz. He attributes this to Westermarck effect—a form of reverse sexual imprinting that causes children raised together from an early age to reject each other as potential partners, even where they are not blood relatives. Consequently, according to Bettelstein, because they cannot find a spouse on the kibbutz, the adolescents look outside and end up leaving. Whatever the case may be, youngsters wanting to leave after attaining adulthood is a serious problem at Revivim, and both Yankalei’s daughters left after marrying men from outside the kibbutz.

Friday, 9 October 2015

Holy Land: Secular Pilgrimage: Part III: A Pioneering Vision

Greetings!

It’s been a busy week here at UTM. In preparation for the posting of these Revivim blogs, I’ve been scanning in loads of old photos which has brought back a few memories. What has been nice has been the fact that I am able to share them on the Facebook Group Volunteers at Kibbutz Revivim 1997. The fact is, volunteering out in the Negev was a seminal experience for a number of people besides me.

I’ve also been thinking about another type of travel this week: time travel. Not in the Dr. Who sense you must understand but in the respect that not only are there different places to visit but also different times in which to visit them. This blog post was written in 2010 after my 2009 trip but it also harks back to 1997 and in those intervening 12 years both the kibbutz in particular and Israel in general had changed quite considerably. I got thinking about all this after reading a book that I borrowed from my good friend Gabriel Hummerstone in Wales, a tome entitled ‘Behind Europe’s Curtain’ by one John Gunther. That name may mean nothing today but straight after the Second World War this American correspondent was one of the most respected journalists in the world. In this book, written in 1949 he wanders around a Central and Eastern Europe that is both very familiar to me but also totally alien and it is fascinating. Alas, I can’t find any copies on sale that I can link you to, but here's the page on Gunther whose most famous work, ‘Inside USA’ I have just ordered from Amazon.

All of these things however, are overshadowed by the fact that I’m about to set off on my next adventure. Only a short one, but on Monday I’m jetting across the North Sea to explore Oslo, the capital of Norway. Can’t wait!

Away from travelling, Cultured Vultures have published another of my stories, this time one written eight years ago entitled ‘Hurt Like Hell’. It was written then as a comment on the immigration debate, something which is especially relevant today. Once again, please read it, share it with you friends and pop Cultured Vultures on your favourites too!

Thanks!

Keep travelling!

Uncle Travelling Matt

Links to other parts of the travelogue:

Sacred Pilgrimage

Secular Pilgrimage

Next part: The Silence of the Desert

The bus pulled into the stop and Yankalei was there to greet us. He was noticeably older and frailer these days and rode in a golf cart to save his legs, but his smile was still as jolly, his eyes still sparkling with ideas and vitality. I like Yankalei, for his life-story inspires respect. Here is a man who helped to construct a nation, who has conversed with prime ministers, who has helped build bridges with the Arabs as well as fight bravely against them when he had to. Above all though, throughout it all he has remained humble, polite and alert. He is the definition of one of nature’s gentlemen; he is a credit to his family, his faith and to his socialist beliefs.

After introducing Thao and Tom we retired to his apartment. Yankalei has been a member of Revivim since its inception on the 7^th July, 1943 and over the years he has lived in several locations there, including the original fortified settlement, (now a museum called Mitzpe Revivim), and the Ghetto where I later dwelt, before moving in the early 1980s to the ground floor flat where he and Sara still dwell.

The apartment has not changed in the slightest during the decade and more since my last visit. There were pieces of local artwork on the walls, an award given to Yankalei by Yitzak Rabin, framed photos of the grandchildren and, in the room where I was staying, two large laminated photographs of Yankalei and Sara when they were in their youth during those early, pioneering years on the kibbutz. Yankalei was instantly recognisable as a younger version of the idealist who still brims with ideas and dreams in his eighties, but Sara was someone else entirely, a child sat on a tractor like a still from a Soviet propaganda film. That image, of a new generation, farming the land mechanically full of hope, embodied to me the idealism, the glorious egalitarian vision that inspired not only the kibbutz movement but the State of Israel itself.

Young Pioneer

Vision, yes indeed, a pure idealistic vision. After centuries of persecution as unwanted strangers in far-off lands, the Jews would gather together again in the land that their ancestors had civilised and then been driven out of. That race, city-dwellers for centuries, mocked by their neighbours for being weak, scheming and effeminate, would return to the soil that had first nourished them and on it grow strong again, making the desert bloom, reviving the ancient realm of King David, becoming feared warriors if necessary. In their ancient homeland they would show the world – as Jews have always shown the world – how to do things. They would lead the globe in irrigation techniques, societal engineering, town planning, archaeology, state-building, making a land inhabitable. Such was the dream that that young girl, a survivor of the worst genocide that history has ever seen, sat on a tractor that ploughed land that only a decade before was deemed uncultivable, symbolised to a tee.

That dream, that vision, fascinates me. I find Israel an ugly country at times. The architecture of Tel Aviv and Beersheva is ugly, the architecture of Revivim itself is ugly. Ugly in a different sense are the settlements on Palestinian land, the wall, the pronouncements of its far-right politicians, yet despite all that, the dream remains beautiful. A hobby of mine is collecting banknotes from around the world and some of my favourite pieces come from Israel. I like banknotes because they are everyday and ordinary yet at the same time they are veritable works of art, art for the people to handle and view every day. But the pictures on them, they rarely reflect reality; instead they project how a country sees itself, what it aspires to be. The 1955 £10 note for example shows a kibbutz in the wilderness making the desert around it bloom,[1] whilst the £5 note shows a tractor ploughing new fields in the Negev Desert.

Kibbutzim and Moshavim celebrated in the 1955 notes

In the 1958-60 series the ½ shekel note shows another kibbutz, this time with a female kibbutznik holding a basketful of oranges in the foreground. On the back though is the Tomb of the Sanhedrin, a link of legitimacy between this new pioneering state and the ancient inhabitants of the land. Similar themes pervade the other notes in this series: a fisherman with a modern ship on one side with a mosaic from an ancient synagogue on Mt. Carmel on the other; a worker and a modern industrial plant with the Seal of Shema (the seal of the ancient Kingdom of Judea); a scientist in his lab and the Dead Sea Scrolls; another kibbutz with two young pioneers and a mosaic of a menorah from an ancient synagogue in Nirim. The new Israel saw itself as a pioneering state with its roots deep in the land’s past.

The 1958-60 series: Images of a young, pioneering, secular country with links to the ancient past

Noticeable though in it all, was the absence of one major element of contemporary Israeli life: Religion. There were links to the past, yes, but these were national, to the people, not the covenant. It was built on a vision but that vision was entirely secular; it was not about fulfilling God’s plan, but about man redeeming his – or her – self through science, technology and politics. Significantly, even today there is no place of worship on Revivim and during all my visits, whilst I heard Yankalei discourse often on beliefs, not once have I heard him mention God.[2]

Their apartment also reflected this dream, the Zionist dream that Yankalei in particular dedicated his life to building. The apartment is modern and pleasant, there is no want there, the people are looked after, but it is at the same time neither extravagant nor ostentatious. It meets the family’s needs yet it does not waste. There are no religious artefacts to be seen, but there are objects of culture, and although there is a kitchen, it is rarely used for most food is prepared in the main kitchens and brought across from the communal dining room. Although somewhat watered down from the original conception – prior to the seventies all dining on the kibbutz was done communally – the egalitarian and pioneering principles that built Revivim are still evident in that humble dwelling.

[1] The image is of the Plain of Jezreel, one of the earliest areas of Jewish settlement. In the 1870s the first moshav, Nahalal was established. The (Arab) Sursock family of Beirut sold 320km² of land to the American Zionist Commonwealth. 8,000 Arab farmers in twenty villages were evicted.

[2] Although, according to Paul, he is a religious man and well-versed in the Torah. He seems however, to have a personal faith, not an aggressively public one such as one grows accustomed to seeing in Jerusalem.

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Friday, 2 October 2015

Holy Land: Secular Pilgrimage: Part II: An Introduction to Kibbutz Living

Greetings!

This week’s extract finds us arriving at Kibbutz Revivim, the place where I volunteered for several months back in 1997. Although perhaps tame compared with my experiences these days, volunteering on a kibbutz in Israel was a seminal life experience for me and I shall treasure those days forever. Over the next few posts you shall discover why so please keep visiting. But for now, just let me recommend the kibbutz experience to anybody. Israel doesn’t get the best of press these days, some of that justified, other bits not so, but what everyone should understand is that there is far more to that little country than bombs, bullets and tension. Out in the Negev Desert, one can find harmony and peace and a co-operative way of life that survives despites all the pressures of an increasingly right-wing world. It is a beacon of hope, or, to translate it’s Hebrew name, a “Spring of Hope”.

Away from travelling, Cultured Vultures have published another of my stories, this time a very short one written seven years ago entitled ‘The Kiss’. Once again, please share it with you friends and pop Cultured Vultures on your favourites too! Thanks!

Keep travelling!

Uncle Travelling Matt

Links to other parts of the travelogue:

Sacred Pilgrimage

Secular Pilgrimage