!עם ישראל חי
שלום לכולם (Hello Everyone)
It has been a long time since the last TAC post. Our European adventures ended four and a half months ago, but I (Eli) am still wandering the world and at a slightly different pace. From Germany I boarded a plane to Tel Aviv where I stayed a few days visiting family. Ben, my brother, happened to be in Jerusalem on Birthright at the time, so I made sure to see him. His trip, however, was being lead by (madricha in hebrew) a friend of mine from College, Carly. Hey Carly. Ma shlomech?
Anyways, besides family, friends, beaches, home cooked food, nights out, a queen sized bed, I was in Tel Aviv where I was soon to be placed on a Kibbutz, where I was to remain between May and August. Between a few recommendations from my cousins and what was available at the time, I chose Kibbutz Lotan. (By the way, the video on the front page of the Lotan site, I made.. more on that later.)
Wait, its now October you may be saying. I may not have had my cup of coffee today, but basic math dictates that you should have left by now, Eli. Well I didn't. This place is fantastic.. and I'll tell you why.
Kibbutz Lotan is located in the Arava valley of the southern Israeli Negev desert right at the border between Israel and Jordan. Who else can say they wake up and walk outside (barefoot may I add, things here are reaaal chill) to the sight of the Edom mountains. Fantastic, nuff said.
While I assumed Lotan would be great, I felt the biggest challenge when living here would have been getting over what its like to live in the desert. When I imagined what life would be like, I imagined I would be living among cacti, scorpions and yak skulls. I imagined constant sun and heat, cold nights and mirages of oasis pools filled with beautiful Israeli women. None of that is true. There is constant sun and heat, but the heat is not a heavy heat because there is no moisture in the air, also there is shade everywhere. At night in most deserts around the world, it gets cold but for some strange reason the Negev maintains it's temperature. Actually, It lowers from the daytime heat to very comfortable temperatures. On occasion you will see a scorpion or a camel spider. But they don't bother you. I stay very hydrated on Lotan (we get our water from an underground aquifer of saline fossil water) so I have not yet stumbled towards that oasis mirage.. but its cool because there are REAL oasis pools here. You just have to know where to look. And some of us know.
The kibbutz itself is a very unique one. Unique because it is supported by four pillars.
The first is that is is completely collective. What this means is that everything is shared by everyone on the kibbutz. All income, all facilities, all food, all everything. Most people work on the kibbutz in the kibbutz industries (which are dairy, arguably the best dates in the world, tourism, and ecology) while others work off of the kibbutz and give all revenue to the kibbutz. All kibbutzim (roughly 270 of them) in Israel started out this way, and it is the tragic fate of 75% of who had to privatize in order to continue to exist. Lotan did not. In summary, I have been living like a communist/socialist for the past four and a half months of my life and its great. Suck on that Fox News.
The second is that it is Reform Jewish. Of all roughly 270 kibbutzim, only two of them align with Reform Judaism. Kibbutzim either associate with religion or they do not. In Israel if you are religious, you are almost always Orthodox and if you are not, you are very much secular. There are a handful of religious kibbutzim, but most are secular. Just because someone may live on a secular kibbutz, however, does not mean that there are not people on that kibbutz who are not religious, it is simply that the kibbutz as a whole does not associate with religion. BUT We consider ourselves a religious kibbutz, but we are not orthodox, we are reform. I was raised in a reform jewish household, and this is the level of judaism that I know and love. It meas we keep a kosher kitchen, celebrate all holidays, keep shabbat etc.
The third is that the kibbutz tries its best to be as ecological as possible given the environment and the resources available. On of the kibbutz industries is the Kibbutz Lotan, Center for Creative Ecology and is in fact at the moment the division where I work and the reason why I extended my trip in Israel. The CfCE is a research center, an educational center and a center for educational tourism and learning. The CfCE hosts many programs including the Green Apprenticeship (which I would like at some point later, to return to participate in) where they teach practical ecology, permaculture, and community design. The video on the front page of the Lotan site is about the GA program. Pretty cool stuff.
The fourth and final pillar is that Lotan is an intentional community. What this means is that they have created a mission statement. Simply put, they don't exist only to make money and live. They see their time here as time with purpose for the greater good of themselves and hopefully the world.
My job on the kibbutz started in the kitchen. I worked there for two months and did zero cooking. Because of an injury to my knee playing soccer, I was advised by the local doctor to seek alternative employment so that I could stay off of my knee. I wanted to stay the remaining month but had to find alternative employment and living situation in order to stay. They also asked that I extend a little, and I say yes with almost no hesitation. That is when CfCE took me in, they also moved me in to the Bustan (in hebrew bustan is orchard) neighborhood where I have been living in a dome made of earth materials. Believe it or not it is incredibly comfortable consider I live in a mud igloo. You can see what they look like in the video, mine is the one with giant hands on the sides. But I don't mean to stray. The work that I do includes the following:
-Research
-Eco tour guide
-Marketing/Outreach
-Tech Development (I am making an iPhone app for Lotan CfCE)
-Office, clerical work
-Resident badass
While all of this is great, the one thing I have learned through all of my travels is that my experience is heavily dependent on the people I meet. I have met fantastic people whom I know I will be friends with for life. These people come from all over the world including: the U.S., England, Germany, Japan, Korea, South Africa, Australia, Sweeded, Switzerlnd, Spain, Austria, Holland, Argentina, Colombia, Ireland, Canada, and of course Ha'Aretz Yisrael (the land of Isreal).
On a more solemn note, I was here during the recent terrorist attacks by Hammas. Kibbutz Lotan is located only 15-20 km away from some of the attack sites. This may be frightening, but I can't imagine being in a safer place given the circumstances. What I mean by that is if there was a terrorist attack near me when I am somewhere else in the world (perhaps very similar to the sniper shootings of 2003 in Montgomery County.. where I grew up) I would feel less safe than I do here. Yalla Tzahel.
Hope I didn't bore you with my book. Now to the good stuff.
Highlights:
