Weekend with Dori

Weekend is a relative term in Israel. Not everyone is fortunate enough to work a five day week, and kids attend school 6 days. For a lot of people the weekend is only a day and a half. We spent ours with Dori at her kibbutz.

When Dori came to Israel she did so with a group of 25 kids, mostly from the midwest, for the purpose of joining the army. They are in a category known as "lone soldiers", which is self-explanatory. But there's more to it than that, and more about that later.

The drive to Afula was a quick 90 minutes. There's a relatively new highway that bisects most of the country on a north-south axis, and it cuts commute times significantly. We picked up Dori and another soldier from her group at the bus station, stopped to grab a take-away falafel, and headed to the kibbutz that is their permanent address while they are in the army. Kibbutz Ein Dor was the first kibbutz founded after Israel became a state in May, 1948. The founders were from Europe, the US and South America.

Big changes have taken place in the kibbutz world. They all have an industrial component in addition to agriculture - light industry, manufacturing, tourism, some have even gotten into assisted living. In the last decade or so they have become less communal. There is some private ownership, meals aren't strictly commensal, and the kids live with the parents rather than in children's quarters. What's interesting about Ein Dor is they have a housing development. They allocated a few acres for private building. Dori's host family, who are not members of the kibbutz, live in one such house.

We stayed in the small guest accommodation at the kibbutz - small but larger than the apartment we had last year - consisting of a bedroom with ensuite bathroom and living room/dining room/kitchen. All this for only 150 shekels (about $39 at today's exchange rate) a night. Actually it was quite comfortable; not luxurious by any means, but much nicer than the creepy hotel we stayed in last year. 

Dori's group gets together every Friday at 6PM to talk about their week. We were flattered that she asked us to join them. What surprised us was they began by saying the traditional Friday night blessings for wine and bread - kiddush and hamotzie - something I never thought would happen on a Shomer Hatzair (socialist-Zionist) kibbutz. Then everyone took a turn talking about the high and low points of their week. That's when one particular aspect of being a lone soldier became much clearer. These 25 kids have left their homes, families and friends to come to Israel and have one of the most intense experiences a person can have. Not an easy undertaking. But to do it without a support structure makes it even more challenging. This is a country that is very family-centric, and one of the things about being in the army that makes it easier on both the soldiers and their families is the fact that they get frequent leave. The ability to go home for a home-cooked meal, to be with family and friends, to have that kind of support is very important. Lone soldiers don't have that luxury. So the kibbutz and the members of the group become the family. For them it was group therapy. For us it was a window on their world.

Then it was off to dinner. Dori's host family - Dana and Michael, their 3 delightful kids and her parents - couldn't be nicer. They embrace Dori as one of their own. Dana is a great cook and put on an amazing spread. It was a lovely evening.

Dori let us know she doesn't get up early on Saturday. She has to make up for the average 4 hours a night sleep she gets on the base. We agreed that noon would be a reasonable start time. Sid and I don't sleep in, so we got up and took a walk around the kibbutz. When Dori got up we all went to a "hoummousiya" - a hoummous restaurant run by one of the members (private enterprise at work), and then went on a short hike. The weather was sunny and warm with barely a cloud in the sky. In other words ... perfect.

For dinner we went to Tiberias to one of our favorite restaurants - Decks. Sort of. Decks is literally a deck with an enclosure on the shore of the Galilee. During the winter they dismantle the enclosure and share space with the Chinese restaurant next door, which isn't one of my favorites. But a combination of a curtailed Decks menu and the fact that the one thing that keeps me coming back to Decks (duck breast) wasn't available, we ordered off the Chinese menu and the the food was excellent. Dori's boyfriend Ron joined us. He's a kibbutznik, the grandson of one of the founders, currently serving in an elite unit of the paratroopers. Good-looking, but even more important, a very nice young man.

We offered to drive Dori back to her base on Sunday morning but she wouldn't let us. She didn't want to take us out of our way, particularly since we couldn't go on the base with her. (That will have to wait till later this month.) She was very grateful, at 7AM, to have us drive her and another soldier to the bus station in Afula.

It was a great weekend.