The following was written on October 20th, 2008.
I’m sitting in the coffeeshop/reception area at Kibbutz Ketura. Just for a little background: Ketura was founded in 1973 when a group of students fresh off of Young Judaea Year Course (another gap-year program, with which I have a special relationship that I will no doubt explain in the future) decided that they wouldn’t go home at the end of their year, but instead stay in Israel and try to establish a kibbutz. A kibbutz is essentially a socialist commune. The kibbutz was one of the early models for Jewish settlement in Israel at the beginning of the century, stressing values of community, like pooled resources and common goals. The image of the desert-grown, hardworking, “kibbutznik” or “sabra” (named after the desert cactus) is a cornerstone of Israeli society—like Shalmi from my last entry mentioned when he spoke to us in the first week—as the symbol of the reinvented Jewish archetype.
Most current kibbutzim have privatized, but Ketura is one of the remaining few (if not the last one) that has remained entirely socialist. The community makes about $5 million a year and provides its members with “free” food, healthcare, education, shelter, and lots of hard work. About 45 minutes north of Eilat, nestled right next to Jordan in the Arava Valley, Kibbutz Ketura is mostly known for its delicious dates and its algae, which produce pigments that can be found in all kinds of skincare products (see Estee Lauder…). However, the most exciting thing happening at this Kibbutz in my opinion is the Arava Insitute for Environmental Studies.
The Institute grants BA and MA degrees in pursuit of technologies and programs to solve environmental problems on the regional and global level. But it doesn’t stop there. What really makes this place unique is how it uses environmental study as a vehicle for coexistence. The students come from Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and America. They are Jewish, Arab and Christian. In fact, we met a really interesting student today, named Katie, who is a Christian from Cleveland. She is converting to Judaism and moving permanently to Israel over the course of the next year or so.
We’ll be here for the next couple of days, celebrating the festival of Simchat Torah tonight, unraveling the Torah and dancing as we prepare to restart the reading this week. Unfortunately our trip to Jordan, which was supposed to be on Wednesday, actually got postponed due to precautions around the impending American Presidential Election (!!!)—one exclamation point for the trip getting postponed, one for the election, and one for what exclamation points are generally for. So I suppose I’ll be writing about the Jordan trip later than I expected, but in any event we’ll finally be settling in our home in Jerusalem on Thursday night after Ketura and a short stint in Eilat.
But let me get back to what got us here. After we left Ein Gedi on Friday, we stayed at Sde Boker—the desert home and gravesite of Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his wife Paula—until arriving at Ketura today. Needless to say, our first Shabbat together was sensational. We did our prayer service on the precipice of an absolutely astounding vista of the Negev Desert. On Sunday we did all things Bedouin, visiting a school and village (not one of those tourist tents!), and hearing lectures from the world’s expert on Bedouin culture Clinton Bailey, who is literally the only person to put the Bedouin culture, which is entirely oral, comprehensively on paper. This was a really special experience, which Peter reminded us would never be recreated. When we got to the school, a few of us taught the rest of us the very rudimentary Arabic that we might have picked up before then. The Bedouin children saw us as aliens I think, but we shook hands and smiled a lot. Indeed, as if this program didn’t already have us flying on high, the laughter of children entered into the mix...
No comments:
Post a Comment