I spent the summer of 1980 trying to run the BBYO office in Hillel House. Rebecca Lowi, our wonderful full-timer, had left. I was on the National Executive, had just finished my ‘A’ Levels and had made no plans for the summer. The arrangement made sense for everyone.
I’ll have plenty to write about that summer in the fullness of time. The diary is rich with clues and the memory still holds some intriguing details. I was 17 going on 18 and that is surely a good age for seminal, memorable stuff.
This piece, though, is very specifically about a hoo-ha that kicked off very early in my time running the BBYO office, concerning that year’s kibbutz groups.
I shall try to extract the relevant scribbles:
Monday 21 July – Not too bad a day. (Kibbutz trouble though).
Tuesday 22 July – Hardish day. More bad reports about the Kibbutzniks
Wednesday 23 July – Hard day. Still worried about Kibbutz lot…
Thursday 24 July – Not too bad a day. (Afek sorted out).
Now the fact of the matter is, I really need some help from some of the people who were on those Kibbutz groups to piece together exactly what happened.
From memory, there were two groups i.e. two Kibbutzim. One Kibbutz seemed fine, whereas the other Kibbutz didn’t seem to recognise that groups of young teenagers from England (I think these were 14 to 17 year old groups) could not be expected to work full adult worker hours in Israeli summer weather.
I received several calls – I think from worried parents – saying their kids were very unhappy and that there did not seem to be equivalence between the Kibbutzim. I was concerned on the first day reports came in but things really kicked off on the second day.
I was 17 years old, I had been a schoolboy three weeks earlier, but it was my job to try intervening and helping to resolve this problem.
I remember talking to some sort of shaliach – i.e. a liaison officer from the agency through which the tours had been organised; The Jewish Agency, if I recall correctly. I think he was quite negative about the situation, suggesting that the problem Kibbutz (which I think must have been Afek given my diary note, but possibly was the other one) was not a suitable venue for teenage kibbutz experience tours.
I remember talking to the agency on the telephone in quite animated terms. Those readers who know me well, especially those who knew me well back then, can imagine how arsy I might have sounded. Did the person at the other end of the phone realise that he was talking to a kid? Possibly. That might have made their predicament seem scarier.
I remember saying that I had really angry parents on the phone constantly, some of them lawyers, who were already threatening to sue anything that moved if the problem wasn’t resolved rapidy.
I remember thinking that I was laying it on a bit thick. I also remember thinking that the “ach, so what do you expect us to do?” attitude I was getting back from my initial enquiries was not getting me anywhere. So laying it on thick with a metaphorical, oral trowel was probably the best approach.
If Afek really was the problem site, then the whole incident panned out (from my point of view) within 72 hours. Word soon reached me that conditions had been changed. Did some youngsters switch Kibbutz? – I think that might have happened in some cases. Or were arrangements made for the groups to meet up some more and have shared leisure time?
Anyway, I do recall that the returning youngsters seemed to have had a good experience in the end and that my intervention was perceived to have helped solve the problem.
I’d love to hear from people who were actually on those kibbutz groups and find out what memories you have of those trips.
I’d love to see some photos, if anyone has them to share.
Coincidentally, there was a play at London’s Royal Court that year, Not Quite Jerusalem, about British youngsters going off to experience Kibbutz life and it not being what they expected. Even more coincidentally, it had its initial public airing through rehearsed readings that very weekend, 25 and 26 July.
Thu, Jul 24, 1980 – 24 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
I didn’t get to see that Royal Court production, but 40 years on…a few days after writing these words, I shall see the play’s first revival at The Finborough Theatre:
Unsurprising, then, that my memories of that 1980 experience came to mind and I was keen to get my thoughts written down before my weak memories morph with the play!
Postscript: seeing Not Quite Jerusalem at the Finborough turned out to be our (my and Janie’s) last visit to the theatre before lockdown:
Anyway, if you were one of those 1980 BBYO kibbutzniks, please do get in touch and share the experiences from your perpective.
Hello Ian and other readers. Hopefully I am replying in the right place about your piece on kibbutz Afek, otherwise also renamed by some of those who had the pleasure of staying there, but I won’t repeat in polite company.
Well, from my memory, what you report here is completely true, and all of those angry parents had good reason to complain and yes the “ach, vhat do you expect us to do about it” must’ve been the case, as our unhappy and unexpected situation went on for quite a while.
There were indeed two groups. I will never forget the night we arrived at our kibbutz; there were cockroaches in the room we were staying in, and on the floor of the bathroom beside the room we were in, and just about everywhere, and I couldn’t sleep at all that first night for fear that one would jump onto me. In fact, I ran out of the room we were in and refused to go back into it for about an hour as I was so scared.
Most of us indeed we are pretty young, about age 14-16, and yes, we had to get up at three in the morning to go and pick pears in the orchards at 3:30 am. We were expected to work a full day, as other volunteers, stopping for breakfast at 8 am or 8:30 am, then finishing at 11 am and having the rest of the day free.
So, for a lot of us or I think all of us, it was a great shock having to get up so early and do this work, and also staying in this environment that wasn’t particularly welcoming.
There were some people who were complaining straight away, as you’d expect, and were disappointed not to be able to wear their nice new holiday clothes and have to change into the work clothes provided by the kibbutz for the work we were doing.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure why, a lot of us, or most of us got diarrhoea while we were on this trip and the food wasn’t terrible, but I do remember trying what I thought was a boiled egg for breakfast that wasn’t properly cooked, and one person in our group did actually get dysentery and had to go to hospital while we were there.
We were aware that various interventions were trying to be made about our working hours and where we were staying, but that didn’t seem to be a huge amount going on, even though poor old Ian was laying it on with a trowel back in London.
We were there for a month, and I do remember that some kids left, I don’t know whether they went and joined family, went home or went to the other kibbutz.
I remember that eventually, our working hours were reduced, and after working in the pear orchards for two weeks, we were all given different work, and ended up at the swimming pool-which was nice and clean and decent- In the afternoons/for the rest of the day from around 11:30 am.
Eventually, a special weekend in Jerusalem was laid on for us as I think a type of compensation, and I think we met up with the other group while we were there.
A lot of us had insect bites & I had masses, And I remember the leader of the other group telling me that a Denman hairbrush was very good to use on the bites instead of scratching them! I think I counted 48 on my legs alone.
Anyway, some of us worked in the kitchens, I remember working in the laundry and in a pressure gauge factory, and after a while I had become more used to the cockroaches, not to say that I particularly liked them, or at all. I remember we were given huge bags of fruit for free but didn’t really have anywhere to wash it, but at least they were watermelons and other nice things.
Finally, at the end of the trip we went on the coach back to the airport and stopped off at the other kibbutz to collect the other group on the way back.
We could then see why we had deliberately been kept from seeing this other kibbutz, as it was paradise and five star by comparison to the shacks/dormitory block places we’d been in
for the month.
I remember there was a huge crowd of mums and dads waiting for us at the airport, probably expecting us to turn up looking half dead. I was delighted to have lost loads of weight and gained a very nice suntan, but still had all the insect bites. I think the rest of the people who were left with generally okay, but understandably, their folks would not been too impressed by the organisation of the whole holiday, let alone some of us who attended. It’s funny how some things stay with you for a long time…!