We’re staying in Israel with Carol and David Gilad at their home in Mishmar HaEmek, a kibbutz. Carol and Christine were roommates at Harpur College. They roomed together in a dorm, along with a third woman, Jeanne Lacks. After many, many years, Carol and Jeanne, who had stayed in touch, found Christine via Facebook. We’ve had a couple of gatherings over the past several years when Carol has come to the U.S., and Carol invited us to visit her in Israel. In 1968, Carol had gone to Israel for the summer to work on a kibbutz, but she never returned to the U.S. to live. She stayed on the kibbutz, married, raised a family of 4 children, and has had a happy life living at Mishmar HaEmek.
There are about 250 kibbutzim (plural) in Israel, nearly all are secular. A small proportion of them are religious. The total population of the kibbutzim is about 126,000 and I was surprised to read that the kibbutzim farms and factories account for about 9% of Israel’s industrial output. So, the kibbutzim are economically and socially important in Israel.
The Mishmar HaEmek kibbutz is an intentional collective community of about 1,200 people. It was started in the early 1920s as an agricultural community. Many of the early kibbutzim were started by Eastern European Jews escaping Europe after World War I. This kibbutz is one of the few that has not privatized and is operated in the traditional collectivist, socialist model where everyone is equal and owns all the assets together.
In appearance, the community doesn’t look much different than a nice private community in the U.S. There are few cars, as everyone drives around in kind of an electric golf cart vehicle that they call a club car. Most of the residential buildings are apartments, all low rise. There are communal buildings for a laundry, library, music, dining hall, pool, clinic, and many other functions. There no longer is a high school on the kibbutz and the high school building was repurposed as a great library. The area is very beautiful with lots of trees. The kibbutz is in a forested area of the country and the early people of Mishmar HaEmek planted a great many of the trees to create the forest. The area is hilly and there are many great views out over the Jezreel Valley. We are in the northern part of the country.
Carol walked us around some of the community Tuesday evening and then again on Wednesday. It really is a very beautiful community.
There are all kinds of trees, shrubs, and flowers all over the community.
I mentioned the dining hall. It is available for 3 meals a day and is part of the community services. They provide a buffet with lots of selections. We had dinner there Tuesday evening and lunch Wednesday.
The photo above shows only half of the dining room. There’s another section off to the right behind Christine and David. Although it looks empty, it was because we were some of the last people to eat before the 8:00 p.m. closing time. It is well-utilized by the residents. David said, though, that there have been many changes in the kibbutz and that the dining hall used to be the heart of the communal activities. It was a multipurpose facility, showing movies, and providing space for all sorts of activities. It is not utilized much other than for meals.
In the 1950s, it became apparent that the collective could not sustain itself by agriculture alone. A plastics factory was started. Today, Tama is a worldwide company producing baling twine as well as all sorts of plastic webbing for baling and sheeting for pallet packing. I was amazed to learn that Tama has a very large contract with John Deere for baling material that Deere sells along with its baling machines. Think about the large round hay bales you might see having a burlap-looking wrapping around them to protect the hay. That stuff probably came from one of the Tama factories, one of which is right here in this kibbutz. The factory funds the operation of the kibbutz and is the mainstay of the collective. There are some other factory operations on the kibbutz, another being a chicken incubator for producing eggs, as well as some continuing agricultural products.
We’re really enjoying our stay here and Carol and David are lovely hosts. It’s so nice to get to experience life in Israel with local residents. Carol is taking us on a road trip tomorrow. We’ll be going to Jerusalem and then to the Dead Sea. What great luck to be here with our own local tour guide!
Thank you for the post, Linda. When you and Christine were here, we talked about you visiting the kibbutz and I was very curious about its operation and products. Your post, along with the photographs, goes a long way in terms of describing just that.
I will no longer pass by the long rows of baled hay covered in white, on our hikes, without thinking, aha, this must be a product of Tama factory.