Chapter 3 Fraternal Alliance

A s the month of September approaches, you can feel a certain relief from the heat in the Jezreel Valley. The fiery sun and oppressive temperatures slowly give way to light breezes and pleasant evenings. The end of summer also means new beginnings: a new school year, and a new class. I was five and a half years old when we started first grade. We were joined to an older group (two grades were combined due to the limited number of births in 1946-1947).

Until the end of the sixth grade, we lived in a building with five bedrooms, a shower, a toilet, and a classroom. We were taught that the group is more important than the individual. Our group was called " Snunit ." We took great pride in belonging to it – above all else. We lived in a moral spotlight and undisputable collective responsibility for the common good. Values such as responsibility, commitment, diligence, mutual aid, belonging, listening, and thinking were inculcated in us by a team of teachers and a counselor specifically for activities of the movement, conversations in our children's group (" kvutza "), and in the larger group setting. Topics for discussion were brought up by the teachers and discussed in an open dialogue. The group conversations took place under the guidance of our teacher that year, and we children took turns writing down the minutes of the conversations. Afterwards, the Snunit report was passed on to the kibbutz archive. Personal identity was defined, to a considerable extent, by one's level of standing in the group.

We had a fixed routine: Wake up time at 6:45, bathroom, and teeth brushing. Eighteen children wait in line for two sinks and two toilets. At 7:15, the first lesson in the classroom. Anyone who didn't wake up in time found themselves getting dressed on the run, streaking through the balcony to class, and stopping in front of the door like a duck stomping his feet with a loud thump on landing. At 8:00 there was a break for breakfast, after which we had two consecutive lessons until the 10:00 recess, and after that, two more classes. School ended at noon and then we went to work. Our work consisted of performing all the tasks related to our daily lives: cleaning the rooms and the classroom, and working in the children's farmyard, where there were rabbits, ducks, chickens, and other animals. We also worked shifts in the " communa " (clothing warehouse); some of us also helped in the yard with ornamental maintenance or helped in the dining room. We each had a permanent job that was changed three times a year and recorded in the "work schedule." Although we only worked for half an hour, this was enough to instill within us a work ethic and a realization that serving others was a valuable and inseparable part of life.

At 12:30 we would gather for lunch in the schoolchildren's dining room. The building had an attached kitchen, and at its north end was the bakery. This place had been used by the founding members of the kibbutz, and its name was changed to " katan " (small) after the "big" dining room was built in 1940. After the meal there was free time to play in the yard. Often we would just pass the time chatting with each other. After lunch and a shower we had a break.

Showering wasn't a simple process. Boys and girls showered together until the seventh grade (age 13). The nanny used to bring us in, in groups of four or five, while the others waited their turn. The boys and girls whose hormonal development began early were embarrassed and didn't want to be stared at by the other children. They found ways to avoid sharing the showers and kept to the back of the line. When they failed in their attempt to avoid the "cooperative" order, they did whatever they could to hide their embarrassment by quickly spreading out with their backs to the others. A quick cover with a towel, or walking at an angle to hide the front of their maturing bodies, were also tricks to avoid the stares. Hands have been used as a time-tested substitute for the fig leaf since Biblical days. Whispers and giggles of embarrassment were heard at the sights of maturing bodies. The boys tried everything to shower together with the girls whose breasts had begun to develop and pubic hair appeared in the triangle between their legs. I was small and shy, and I started puberty late, so I remember very well being glad for the gift my body gave me.

Anyone who didn't fall asleep for the nap between 2:00 and 3:00 had to read. I liked reading, but I preferred to spend my rest time in the room of my favorite nanny, Feigeh, who took care of us until sixth grade. Whenever I came across an incomprehensible word in the book, I would go to her and ask her the meaning of the word and stay with her in the workroom until she sent me back to bed. She often didn't bother sending me away, and I stayed with her until nap time was over. I loved Feigeh and had the courage to ask her intimate questions and talk to her openly and frankly.

When I was eight, I read the story "The Golden Heart Flower" by Hans Christian Andersen, which tells the story of a sick mother whose son goes out to bring her the flower that can heal her. The devotion and love of the child for his mother, and the mother's love for her son, moved me and brought me to tears. Very quickly I found myself asking Feigeh, while wiping away my tears: "If my real mother is alive, where can I find her?"

Feigeh patted my head, handed me a handkerchief, and answered, "Maybe in Haifa?"

Often, when I visited my mother's cousin and his family, the Graf family in Haifa, I would walk in the streets looking for women that I resembled. Once, when a nice blonde lady passed by, I stopped next to her. "Maybe you lost your little girl?" I asked. The woman gave me a strange look and continued walking. Later I learned that it was no accident that Feigeh mentioned Haifa. The adoption issue was not discussed in the Snunit group. The children didn't ask me any questions or refer to the matter because it was considered to be taboo; in other words, it was forbidden to mention it. Thus the children imitated the adults who wouldn't talk about the subject in public, even though there was no express prohibition for the children to avoid talking about my having been adopted.

My parents treated me like a precious treasure, and their attitude even extended to relatives outside the kibbutz, who showered me with beautiful gifts. I received the most expensive gifts from my mother's cousin Oleg (Olesch) who had emigrated from Poland with his wife and two children in 1957. Oleg made a living selling bicycles that he brought in from the business he left behind in Warsaw. On my 10 th birthday he gave me a "Diamond" bicycle. I streamed down the kibbutz pathways with great pleasure, feeling free and exhilarated. To this day bicycling is my favorite sport.

That same year, my uncle gave me a pair of roller skates that you could adjust by turning a key and tightening the clamps to fit the size of your shoe. I was considered someone born with a silver spoon in my mouth. In the modest and minimalist environment in which I grew up, in the life of the kibbutz collective in the 1950s and 1960s, personal possessions like the bicycle and the skates were a source of immense pride, aside from being an abnormal deviation from ideological equality.

Besides these rare and unexpected gifts, we were all equal in our clothing, footwear, hats and blue Sumerian shirts with white laces. Twice a year, in spring and autumn, two special events took place: For Passover, we received new sandals made at a shoemaker's shop, new shorts, and new short-sleeved shirts from the seamstress shop. We tried on clothes passed down from the older children to the younger ones in a stuffy, mothball-smelling room. Piles of second-hand clothes were stacked and tied, carefully and neatly arranged in perfect order by Penina, the young kibbutznik in charge of the task. The measurement process lasted about a week. I usually came away with clothes I liked, except for the shorts with elastic that were ridiculous and left red marks on the inside of the thighs. It was only when we reached age 14 that we were "blessed" with the airy stitching of straight, open trousers.