Visiting the Kibbutz Mishmar Ha’emek

A slight, intense woman with dyed red hair, Lydia Aisenberg spoke forcefully to us, as I am sure she does with other groups that visit her kibbutz. She is a journalist by training, a political activist by avocation, and an effective advocate for her kibbutz. She is secular, socialist by inclination, and sympathetic to the suffering being inflicted by Israelis on Palestinians, a combination that most of those in her audience found attractive. And she knew it.

Lydia began by identifying herself as a Jewish girl who faced anti-Semitism as a child in Wales and as a young adult in London. As a young child, she was accused of killing Jesus, and also of drinking the blood of babies, who were killed on Passover by her parents. The only Jewish child in her Welsh town, she was moved from school to school by her father to try to avoid these harsh attacks. At age 11 a teacher brought her to the front of a class of 40 students and asked here to explain why her ancestors killed Jesus.

A Welsh golf champion, she was unable to join any golf club. In the 60s in London, she saw signs on apartments for rent that read, "No Jews or Blacks," or "No Jews or dogs." So, for 10 Pounds she changed her name from Greenberg to Green in order to "pass" among Gentiles. It never felt right, however, and later she paid another 10 Pounds to return to her original name.

She came to Israel in 1967 to learn Hebrew, and found on the kibbutz equality and social justice, as well as a husband. She continues to live at Mishmar Ha’emek, she said, because there she has her laundry done, receives three meals a day and so doesn’t have to cook, and also doesn’t have to worry about paying her electric bill.

The Mishmar Ha’emek kibbutz began 82 years ago, when the pioneering Jews who came to the area drained the swampland in the valley and learned from the Arabs nearby how to farm the land. Until the 1948 war, relationships between Jews and Arabs were good there, and some of the surviving kibbutz members, who were children during these years, made good friends with Arabs and spoke Arabic as their first language.

When the war broke out in 1948 a group of Arabs gathered above the Arab villages on the hill above the kibbutz and asked the villagers to join in an attack. Some did, but others simply fled the conflict. In addition to loss of life on both sides, the war led to Arab refugees, mostly in Jenin on the West Bank, and the destruction of the Arab villages near the kibbutz.

The war in 1967 has never ended, Lydia said, at least for many Israelis. Moreover, the two Intifadas, especially the second Intifada, have led Jews in Israel to conclude that the world is against them. The UN is seen as prejudiced, because of the General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism. Today, many Israelis want peace for both Palestinians as well as Israelis, but are no longer willing to do much to protect the human rights of Palestinians.

She described how the kibbutz began in a small area, renting land from the state. Today it is a very successful kibbutz, but it was a struggle to achieve that success. The first kibbutz members were socialists, atheists, rebels, although some might have prayed to God occasionally, just in case God did exist.

They lived simple lives, held most property in common, and worked the land. Their purpose was to create a new Jew and a new state of Israel. When agriculture proved unable to provide them with an adequate living, the kibbutz underwent its "industrial revolution." Now it has plastic factories, exports, and has changed almost entirely its way of life because of its greater affluence. The change in attitude required accepting the need to educate their children for business and professional roles, and accepting the place of the kibbutz within the capitalist system.

The kibbutz controls a large piece of the valley, and also maintains a right to the woods on the hillside behind the kibbutz, as long as they have cattle grazing there. It is no longer economical to keep the cattle, Lydia said, but the kibbutz doesn’t want to lose its right to the woods.

The kibbutz has members from 37 countries. Lydia married a Russian Jew, who survived the Holocaust. Her "foster mother" when she came, who was born in Basra, Iraq, married another Holocaust survivor, who was from Poland but had lived after the war in Belgium. When he wasn’t allowed to become a citizen there, he moved to Israel.

She defended her country’s struggle to survive, noting its unique problems. In addition to the trauma of the Holocaust and continued war, it has absorbed a large number of immigrants. Most recently, these immigrants have not been Zionists, but Russians and Ethiopians. 40% of the one million immigrants in the last ten years have not been Jewish, and they have suffered problems getting married because of that (for the Orthodox establishment controls marriage in Israel).

Lydia told a plaintive story about an older member of the kibbutz, who was close friends with Arabs as a child. Just before the war began in 1948, he spoke with a group of Arabs who had gathered outside the kibbutz fence. When he turned to walk away, he was shot. Years later, when she offered to take kibbutz members with her to an Arab village, where she has been interviewing people, this elderly man joined the group. And there, he met the daughter of one of his old friends, who was alive in a Jenin refugee camp.

A reunion was planned, but then the second Intifada began and the reunion was canceled. When Lydia urged her Jewish friend to contact his old Arab friend by phone, he said, "It isn’t so easy," pointing to the scar on his face where the bullet had entered his skull.

Recently, Lydia said, she was back in London and saw in a newspaper a depiction of two Jewish politicians as pigs. All her old feelings of persecution were aroused once again. She feels that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe, and she argued that this reinforces the Jewish sense of being vulnerable.

She remains a pacifist, but is the mother of four sons who have commanded army units, and her youngest son is still in the army. She is a Zionist, but she wants justice for the Palestinians, which is why she spends most of her time now working for Palestinian human rights.

Lydia said she would continue her work with Palestinians, but had little hope that the conflict between the two peoples would soon be over. She knew that the Israeli government was treating the Palestinians very badly, but she also believed that there would be no peace until the Palestinians gave up terrorists attacks on Israelis as a way of trying to pressure the Israeli government into agreeing to a better deal for Palestinians.

Bob Traer, 4 April 2005

I am writing as a participant in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel, which is sponsored by the World Council of Churches. The views expressed above are personal and do not necessarily represent the World Council of Churches. If you wish to publish or disseminate this letter beyond personal friends, please contact the EAPPI Communications Officer (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission to do so. Thank you.

For photos taken at the kibbutz, go to http://christian-bible.com/Ethics/photos.kibbutz.htm. 

For other Letters from Jerusalem, go to http://christian-bible.com/Ethics/lj.letters.2005.htm.

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