Monday May 5, 2014 Kiryat Shmoneh, Har Halutz
Today is Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s memorial day. When I was
here four years ago, I went to the cemetery for the community’s commemoration.
I asked about a kibbutz ceremony here at k’far blum but then decided that I
wanted to have a new experience.
When I lived in K. Shmoneh in 1987, it was called “ketusha
city” by Time magazine, a reference to the more than 10,000 ketusha rockets
that fell from southern Lebanon in one summer. In response, the teachers in the
town had the army drag one of the mobile rocket launching trucks from Lebanon
to the entrance to K. Shmoneh, where the kids painted it bright colors.
Interestingly, the rocket launching truck is gone, replaced by brightly painted
tanks. While I don’t know, I’m imagining that they thought it better to present
the vehicles that protect the city, rather than the one that brought death and
destruction.
The municipality created a memorial to those who died right
next to the tanks.
I decided that this
was where I wanted to be when the sirens sounded at 11 am.
A single wrong turn put me and my rental car in a parking
lot blocked in by all the other cars getting off the road by 11 am. What the
heck. I parked, got out, and ran like
crazy to get to the memorial. With,
literally, seconds to spare, the sirens blasted.
I walked (slowly) back to my car, even choking up a bit to
be in the moment.
Believe it or not, I haven’t had much time to write this
blog. I spent a few hours at Kfar Blum
getting the blog moving.
Back in Camp Swig days, I was a counselor, then a unit head,
for Liora Asa. Liora later enrolled at Berkeley where her mom made me promise
to watch over her as another older brother. We’ve kept in touch over the years,
even as Liora and her husband Michael made aliyah to har halutz, a hilltop
community created by the World Union of Progressive Judaism to bring (mostly)
young American Jews, infused with the summer camp style of Judaism, to
Israel.
I visited four years ago, which happen to be the day of her
daughter’s bat mitzvah. Today, I visited
again, with much more time to sit and chat.
On the way down (about a hour’s drive), I witnessed an
accident on the road, with a car flipped over in a single lane construction
zone, another damaged car beside it, lots of police, and a back up that
resembled a 4 kilometer-long parking lot.
On Yom Hazikaron especially, as someone once told me (and I
don’t know if its true) that more Israelis have died in road accidents than in
wars. Drive safely, Marc!
Liora, Michael, their kids, a few neighbors, their neighbors
kids, another alum of Camp Swig and I spent a few hours chatting and walking
around the yishuv (community/ colony). It
was, of course, great to see them, to reconnect, to hear about their life in
Israel, to share about BDS (the subject of their greatest concern).
Sadly, Liora told me that fewer than 10% of the community’s
current residents are part of the original mission/vision of pluralistic
Judaism in Israel. Other than kabbalat Shabbat,
she explained, most Judaism is gone. In one way, it makes perfect sense. The
community has normalized to the secular nationalism of most Israelis. In
another, though, it was sad to realize that the vision didn’t materialize.
Liora explained, quite powerfully, that her life is taken over by trying to get
over the “abyss” of managing all it takes to raise three kids in a more remote
village in Israel.
Thanks to Waze, we learned that the traffic had not
eased. I asked if there was another way
back to Kfar Blum. Even as Michael
warned me to keep driving, even when I think I’ve come “to the end of the
world,” I decided to take “the scenic route” back.
For those of you locals, here it is: Exit the Yishuv, take a
right on Rt. 854, then a right on Rt. 89, then left on Rt. 899, a right on Rt.
8966, a left on Rt. 886, a left on Rt. 90 and voila! Back in K. Shmoneh.
It was a beautiful drive, passing the Geffen industrial park
(which I visited in its origins in 1981), then through Hurfeish, a Druze
village I visited either in 81 or 86 (can’t remember!). The drive moved along the top of the ridge of
mountains separating Lebanon from the Hula Valley. The views were stunning. A quick right turn and I was descending the
side of the mountain into the Valley near Kfar Blum.
Literally as I was entering K. Shmoneh, I received a call
from Shayna’s kibbutz mom inviting me over for their Independence Day BBQ an
hour later. (As the sun sets on Memorial Day, the country transitions to the
celebration of Independence Day). Hard for many to mourn their fallen soldiers
one day, and party the next..
At the BBQ, I took a seat with grandpa and a bunch of uncles
in the family. It was a great exercise
of my Hebrew as I worked as hard as I could to engage only in Hebrew, and to
sustain it as long as possible. While we
did break into English on occasion, it felt good to sit on the patio, eating
steak, and chatting in Hebrew with the family.
The kibbutz (Sde Nehemiah) holds a massive outdoor
Independence Day show with singing and dancing by the kids. We all walked over…
when
I realized that this was the same kibbutz that Rivi (Rebecca) attended on her 8th
grade trip. After the show,
they set off fireworks.
Then, some folk dancing..
Shayna went back to her room on the kibbutz
while I headed to kfar blum.
When I arrived at kfar blum, I was one of the only people at the hotel. Something happened as Yom Hazikaron changed to Yom Ha'atzmaut. Literally hundreds of Israelis, mostly seniors, descended on Kfar Blum by the bus load. The place was packed! They had a "sing a long" in the auditorium..
