Green-line family

On Sunday evening, January 9^th, Bob began the long journey home, and Josh and I spent the night in Tel Aviv.  Bright and early Monday morning we took a taxi to the bus station, and then traveled to Tiberius.  As with a number of other stops during the last three months, I really knew very little about Tiberius.  When preparing for this trip I had asked Rabbi Adam Stock –Spilker, (one of the Rabbis at Mt. Zion Temple in St. Paul) for any Israeli contacts/connections he might share with me.  He suggested I contact Dan Mogelson, Director of Young Leadership and Israel Programs at the United Jewish Fund and Council of St. Paul.  Dan forwarded my e-mail of inquiry to the Jewish Agency for Israel in the Sovev Kinneret region.  There is a partnership between the Sovev Kinneret region (where Tiberius and the Sea of Galilee are located) and St. Paul, Minnesota.  After receiving my e-mail of inquiry, Hadar Binya (of the Jewish Agency) contacted me via e-mail and asked what I would like to do in the area.  I explained my background to her, and told her I would like to teach some dance classes and, if possible, visit Kibbutz Ga’aton - a Kibbutz about an hour from Tiberius that is home to a contemporary dance company and a Dancers’ Village.

The Jewish Agency’s website explains that the Jewish Agency’s Partnership 2000 program (P2K) connects 550 communities around the world with 45 communities in Israel.  The term “living bridge” is a phrase used in the literature about the programs.  None of this really had a context for me before I arrived.  I only knew that Hadar, the “living bridge” coordinator, was exceptionally organized and had set up opportunities for us to visit with individuals in this area, and opportunities for me to teach at a number of dance centers.  What I actually experienced goes far beyond that simple explanation.  Before we went to Israel, many people inquired if we had family there.  My answer was “no.”  We leave Israel, knowing in our hearts that we will return, because we now have family all over the Sovev Kinneret region.

Monday, we were picked up at our hotel by Partership Director, Levana Caro-Regev, and taken to Kibbutz Afikim, where Gaby Osem, a partnership staff member, who grew up at Kibbutz Afikim and currently lives there, met us.  Afikim is very different from Lotan.  It is much larger, much older and currently privatized.  From its early days, and now, the population of this Kibbutz has been close to 1,000.  Russian and Polish Jews who wanted to create a radically different kind of community organized and settled in the Upper Galilee in 1924.  They relocated to their current location in the Jordan Valley, a few miles from the Sea of Galilee, in 1932.  Afikim means riverbeds and refers to the Jordan River. 

In the early days of the Kibbutz everything was owned communally and everything was decided by consensus.  And, I mean EVERYTHING.  Abby explained that when a baby was born, the community decided the baby’s name – not the parents.  All meals were prepared and eaten in the shared dining room.  Everyone was assigned a number, which was written in every item of clothing and all laundry was dropped off at the community owned laundry service.  Where individuals were assigned to work, and what kind of work they did, was decided by the community.  Everything was done to free women from tradition childrearing and home-making roles to allow them to work and serve the community.  While many of the ideas sounded pretty great to me (I would be happy with someone preparing all my meals and doing my laundry) it was the radical child rearing practices that are certainly the most questionable to these 21^st Century eyes.  From a very young age children were moved into the Children’s house, and spent only from 4 – 8 PM with their biological parents.  Having Gaby escort us into the current building that is now a colorful kindergarten, and say, “This is where I lived when I was two years old,” gave the history a personal face. 

The Afikim of today is very different.  First of all, the days of the “children’s house” are long gone.  Children are raised, by their parents, in their own homes.  It is still a large and vibrant community, but after an economic crisis in the 1980’s it began a process of privatization.  The kibbutz grows bananas, dates, and grains.   It operates two large factories.  One that produces dairy equipment and another, which produces a kind of electronic wheelchair.  Kibbutz members now own their own homes and cars, and the dinning room is more of a restaurant where members can choose to have, and pay, for their meals.

After the tour of the Kibbutz, Abby took us to coffee at a wonderful store that featured all varieties and products made with dates (Oh if I only had a bigger suitcase and knew things could get through customs!) and then we went to the Jordan Valley Dance Center where I taught a modern technique class to a group of about 20 high school age girls.  The students were athletic and energetic and I enjoyed working with them. 

Tuesday was almost entirely unscheduled, which was lovely.  Josh and I walked the promenade by the Sea of Galilee.  That particular morning there was a light haze and it was impossible to tell where the sky ended and the water began.  The Sea of Galilee, or Kinneret, as it is called in this area – is incredibly beautiful.

The Sea of Galilee

In the evening we were picked up by a young dancer and her mom, Adva Shayak, and taken to their home for dinner.  We had a delicious dinner (we have been very well fed the entire week!) and so enjoyed this family’s hospitality.  It is difficult to explain how sometimes you can just meet someone for a short time, yet feel like you developed an enduring connection.  I cannot predict where or when but I know the Shayak family and the Rusinko-Weisenfeld family will connect again.

Wednesday morning the Partnership had arranged a taxi to drive us to Kibbutz Ga’aton.  It was just over an hour’s drive, but it allowed me to see more of the northern part of Israel. Ga'aton is located in western Galilee.  In 2006 it had a population of 409.

Kibbutz Ga'aton is the home of the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company (KCDC). Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company performs all around the world and has been widely identified with the works of its Artistic Director Rami Be'er.  Yet it is the story of the company’s founder, Holocaust survivor, Yehudit Arnon, which first put this Kibbutz on my radar, and identified it as a place I really wanted to visit.

Anon was born Yehudit (Judith) Schischa-Halevy, in 1926 in Komárno, Czechoslovakia.  Schischa-Halevy and her parents were sent to Auschwitz in 1944.  In the Jewish Women’s Archive, dance historian Judith Brin Ingber , recounts the story that has become legendary in the Israeli dance community

Just before Christmas Eve of 1944 the Kapo (an inmate appointed by the Germans to head a work gang of other prisoners) told Yehudit that the SS wanted her to dance at their Christmas party in Auschwitz. When she refused she was forced as punishment to stand barefoot in the snow. There and then she decided that if she survived, she would dedicate herself to dance.

(Judith Brin Ingber’s entry about Arnon in the Jewish Women’s Archive: http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/arnon-yehudit)

And dedicate her life to dance she did.  After surviving the freezing cold, the labor camps and a death-defying experience in front of a firing squad, she was released and moved to Budapest where she joined the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement and in began her life’s work in creating through dance. During this period she met and studied with a disciple of Kurt Joos, met and married her husband, Yedidya Ahronfeld and decided to move to “Palestine.”  Prior to moving, her husband changed their family name to Arnon, and Yehudit took a three-day crash course in dance theory and modern dance technique.  In 1948, Arnon and her husband moved to Israel and joined Kibbutz Ga'aton, located in the Western Galilee, where she lives to this day.  Arnon pioneered the cause of dance in the Kibbutz Movement with the establishment of a dance center in Ga'aton and devoted herself to dance education. Shortly afterwards she established the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, drawing talents from the various Kibbutz Movements.

After touring the facilities and watching the beautiful dancers in the DANCE JOURNEY Program (a five month program including dancers from all over the world, part of MASA: Gateway to Long-Term ISRAEL Programs, For details: www.masaisrael.org) we traveled back to Degania Aleph in the Kinneret region where we were met by Shay Shoshany, Levana Caro-Regev, and Hadar Binya for a fabulous lunch.  Following our meal, Shay (a member of the Kibbutz and a wonderful storyteller) gave us a tour of the Kibbutz.

Hadar, Shay, Me and Josh at Degania Aleph

Degainia Aleph is often referred to as the “mother of the collectives and the kibbutzim.”  Here is what the pioneers wrote of their intentions: “On the 28th of October 1910, there arrived at Umm Juni, ten men and two women.  We came to establish an independent settlement of Hebrew laborers, on national land, a collective settlement with neither exploiters nor exploited – a commune”.

Degania was a landmark in the history of the kibbutzim in Israel.  It was here that the principles of independent work and collective life materialized.  After Degania, hundreds of kibbutzim were established throughout Israel, some of whose members received their training at Degania.  Although it is "the mother of the collectives and the kibbutzim," Degania is also different from the other kibbutzim and collectives which arose after her.  Degania never had separate sleeping quarters for the children - they always slept at home within the family unit.  Hired labor always existed, as well as a liberal approach and an understanding of the needs of the individual.

Moshe Dayan, was born and raised at Degania.  Many, many historic meetings took place on the grounds of Degania.  It is also the site of the legendary “Battle of Degania” – where in 1948, settlers held off the Syrian army using “Molotov cocktails.”

Posing with the younger students at the Jordan Valley Dance Center

After feeling well steeped in the history of the Kibbutzim movement, Hadar drove us back to the Jordan Valley Dance Center where I was able to teach two more classes, then met dancer/teacher Doron Gueta to see a brilliant performance of the Vertigo Dance Company in Tiberius, which brought a close to an overwhelming rich day of history and dancing. 

Hadar, Levana, Yaron, me, Doron

On our final day in the region, I met Hadar, Levana, Doron, and theater director, Yaron Ruach, for yet another wonderful lunch, before teaching two dance classes at the Tiberius Dance Center.  Doron Gueta, a former dancer with one of the dance companies from Kibbutz Ga’aton, is in the first year of building a dance program in Tiberias.  The first class, was for younger students, and the second class was for more mature (18 years old +) students.  Many people have asked me if I was “required” to be teaching classes during my sabbatical.  There is no requirement here – just a deep love.  After all these years, I still love teaching dance, and I love getting to know new people by dancing with them.  I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere Doron has created with his students.  At the end of class, I found myself getting teary.  I was not ready to leave the friends and family I had made in this area. I could only promise the people I had met I would do my best to return, and would welcome them warmly if they ever journeyed to Minnesota. 

Friday morning, Josh and I caught a bus to Jerusalem, and then a taxi to my friend Michal’s home.  I had met Michal twenty years ago in an “Introduction to Body-Mind Centering” class.  We would spend our last 30 hours in Israel, by spending Shabbat with her.  For now I will simply say it was the perfect closure to our three-month journey.  I promise to write more about that another day.

In her book, StoryCatcher, author Christina Baldwin talks about red line families and green line families.  Your red line is your family by birth, your green line is your family by choice.  “The blood line and the chosen line.”  The color “green” also speaks to me of gardening and sustainability.  So many seeds were planted during our weeks in Israel.  My green line family is scattered all over Israel, and my heart is filled with lush green memories.