October 28, 1959
Life on a kubbutz is a wondrous thing. I could gladly spend my life here. The people... every single one of them an idealist. They are strong, they are smiling, they are beautiful. There is much laughter and song here. There is much togetherness: as a community we eat and work, sing and play. But often we can be alone to read, to listen to music, to wander along the beach. There is complete freedom here. One works with, not under. There is no director, no boss. Each person is an equal individual.
Today as I was standing, pitch fork in hand, on a huge pile of green silage, I was exultant. I was exultant looking first upon the many bales of golden hay, the neat houses with well-trimmed lawns, the barns, the cattle, the white waving wheat, the dark citrus groves, the deep blue sea, and then, all around us, grinning in defeat, the dry waterless desert. There are still jackals on the sands, howling at night. Here is something one can truly feel for.
From nothing was this land conceived. It is one of the driest, most sterile, rockiest places I have ever seen. But Israel blooms. There are green fields and cool orchards, gleaming white cities, immense irrigation projects. And there are people! People who have been persecuted for five thousand years. Jews from Iraq and Morocco, Jews from Germany and Yemen. And on their faces is not only the dream of a hundred generations, but the spirit of Israel today. I have never felt so alive and aware as I am now. I have never been so proud as I am now. And I have never believed in anything so strongly as I believe in Israel.
No comments:
Post a Comment