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Authors: Edeet Ravel

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thing. How it started, how it ended. I wanted

 

to include what my father said—that the best

 

thing about Eldar was having my mother

 

to himself in the evenings, without the kids

 

around. But I don’t know where to put that.

Nissim73:

Don’t get overwhelmed.

Novelist55:

It’s the reason I could never write science fic-

 

tion. I’d have to figure out a way not to spend

 

the entire novel explaining.

Nissim73:

I like that. Kibbutz as scifi.

Novelist55:

You know that guy who sued his kibbutz for

 

traumatizing him?

Nissim73:

That’s sort of a cliché by now, don’t you think?

 

I know that guy by the way.

Novelist55:

It’s a cliché in Israel. But not in the rest of the

 

world.

Novelist55:

Besides, I hate that trivializing. It’s very Israeli—I

 

mean not only Israeli but it’s something you

 

see a lot in Israel. Everyone always saying azov

 

[let it rest] and shtuyot [nonsense]. Especially

 

shtuyot.

Nissim73:

You’re sentimental.

Novelist55:

That’s it—it’s supposedly the fear of being

 

sentimental but it’s really just the ordinary

 

fear of feeling.

Nissim73:

Well if we felt everything here, the streets

 

would empty out, we’d all be locked up in

 

psychiatric wards. Apart from Baruch Marzel,

 

he’s indestructible.

Novelist55:

Trauma as a way of life?

Nissim73:

Exactly. I don’t mean victim trauma. I mean

 

watching the country fall apart trauma. Listen,

 

don’t worry about including everything.

Novelist55:

It’s not that I’m worried. It’s that I have so

 

much I want to say but at the same time I like

 

to be spare. I like to leave rabbit holes for the

 

reader to fall into. By the way, thanks for pick-

 

ing up the permission slip from Maariv.

Nissim73:

You’re welcome.

Novelist55:

You know one book club I went to, there was

 

this Jewish woman there, around my age or a

 

bit older

Novelist55:

and she was so upset that in my first novel

 

there are negative references to the kibbutz.

Novelist55:

I mean, she really has this vision, even though

 

it goes against all logic and reason, of the

 

barefoot soldier dancing in the sand with her

 

braid flying

Novelist55:

of a perfect place with perfect people

Novelist55:

a kind of paradise, or even if people aren’t

 

perfect, they’re all noble and moral and one

 

must think well of them

Novelist55:

even though life must have taught her that

 

humans are the same everywhere, that the

 

entire species is fucked up. But not on Eldar …

Nissim73:

I think you still believe that yourself. You’re still

 

a Zionist.

Novelist55:

Well even Chomsky is a Zionist if you define

 

the word properly. To quote him.

Nissim73:

Here’s what I think

Nissim73:

politically, Jabotinsky won

Nissim73:

politically, Jabotinsky was a pacifist next to

 

today’s lot. But

Nissim73:

on the non-political level that whole dichot-

 

omy, left and right, it’s not relevant.

Novelist55:

It is relevant. It’s everything.

Nissim73:

Listen

Novelist55:

yes

Nissim73:

You don’t want to tell me what you’re wearing?

Nissim73:

apart from your jeans, that is …

Novelist55:

I meant to ask you, can I include our conversa-

 

tions in my novel?

Nissim73:

If you want.

Novelist55:

Do you know the book Nissim and Niflaot?

Nissim73:

no.

Novelist55:

How is that possible? Lea Goldberg … about a

 

boy and his monkey. The boy is called Nissim

 

and the monkey is called Niflaot. Miracles and

 

Wonders.

Nissim73:

Right now the miracle I’m waiting for is for my

 

air-conditioning to start working again. Guess

 

I’ll go to sleep, I’ve had a long day.

Novelist55:

Don’t forget to keep the light on.

Nissim73:

If the world ends, at least I’ll be able to see it.

Novelist55:

leila tov matok

Nissim73:

leila tov metuka

56
. Literally, a piece of something; commonly used in Modern Hebrew to refer to the segment of a citrus fruit.

57
.
Tarzan and the Amazons
, with Johnny Weissmuller (1945); available on YouTube. For the sweeping boy, see part one at 3 minutes, 20 seconds.

58
. Credentials were easy to fabricate in the early days of the State, especially in professions where genuine qualifications were in short supply.

59
. Snarey, 1982/83.

60
. The Hebrew
zefet
means “tar” or “pitch” (see Exodus 2:3— ”And when she could no longer hide him, she took an ark of bulrushes and covered it with wet earth and pitch”). The Arabic cognate is
zift
and means both “tar” and “trash”; the latter is used as an interjection expressing cursory dismissal or disapproval. Modern Hebrew borrowed both senses of
zift
but also retained the Hebrew
zefet
, hence Dori’s confusion.

61
.

A Herd of 120 Goats Was Returned Yesterday to Lebanon

The goats were led by two shepherds from Lebanon who entered Israel a few days ago, north-west of Eldar. Border Guards came across the shepherds and the goats and took the goats into custody. The shepherds succeeded in fleeing.

—Davar,
7 April, 1960

Lebanese Shepherd Arrested, His Friend Manages to Escape

Border Guards arrested yesterday at 10:00 A.M. a shepherd from Lebanon near Kibbutz Eldar when he crossed the border into Israel with his friend and shepherded his goats. The two came across the patrolling Border Guard who ordered them to stop. They did not obey and began to run towards Lebanon. One managed to return to Lebanon with the goats but his friend, age 16, was arrested 400 metres from the border.

—Davar,
27 November, 1960

62
. In 1951, anthropologists Melford and Audrey Spiro spent a year observing children at Beit Alpha, the oldest Young Guard kibbutz (founded 1922). Members of the kibbutz they studied were reportedly shocked and dismayed when the book based on these observations came out.

Melford, who by his own account had been warmly welcomed during his stay, was now accused of distortion, exaggeration, errors, and incomprehension. Members were stunned when Melford reported that, between the ages of one and five, more than half of all observed interaction between the children consisted of acts of physical aggression e.g. hitting, slamming others with an object, kicking, biting, jostling, jumping on, throwing objects at, scratching with fingernails, pulling hair, destroying a toy or game another child was playing with, smearing with food, choking, threatening to cut with a knife, eye-gouging, hair-cutting and penis-pulling.
Melford himself claimed to be the constant target of what he felt was unprovoked aggression, and though he was aware that his work would be compromised if he departed from the observer’s stance, he and Audrey sometimes had to intervene, he said, to save a child from being seriously injured when the Minder left the room and asked one of them to keep an eye on things.
No one could explain Melford’s “ludicrous” comment that in the past children were not prevented from playing with their faeces; members felt he had misunderstood what he was being told, given the fact that virtually all kibbutzim are obsessed with cleanliness and health.
Most wounding, however, were descriptions of the neglect of infants, whom Melford said could not be cared for properly by one worker, even with the best of intentions.

—Selina R. Korenberg,
Under a Microscope: The Kibbutz as a Subject of Study
(Unpublished Doctoral Thesis)

“At least the Melfords understood basic Hebrew, unlike Bruno [Bettelheim], who didn’t speak a word of Hebrew and only spent a few weeks on the kibbutz, mostly writing in his room and asking for favours. He never looked in on the children for more than a few minutes at a time.”
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