Kibbutz Hanaton

It may be because once you grow up you start to get weary from city life (which is why every adult I know eventually gets to the point in their life when they want to buy land and move to the countryside). It may be the socialist elements of my upbringing and youth. It may be the calling of the Land and the idealized image I tend to have of early Zionism. But lately I have been having fantasies of moving to a kibbutz and living there.

My first candidate would be Kibbutz Hanaton in the Lower Galilee. Kibbutz Hanaton is not only one of the most gorgeous places I have visited in Israel (It has an ordinary sort of breathtaking beauty) but also the only kibbutz associated with the Conservative Movement. Furthermore, Kibbutz Hanaton needs the people. They need volunteers and new members to realize their full potential which, from my naive perspective, is great. I would love to eat from the fruit of my labor. I would love to wake up to the song of the mountains of the Galilee. I would love to set up a yeshiva for Spanish speakers that would combine Torah learning with volunteer work in the Kibbutz. I would love to shepherd my eight children (future) through the grapefruit groves. I would love so many things. Who knows? If you willeth, it is no dream. After all, this is the country were dreams come true for nice little good Jewish boys like yours truly. We shall see.

This past weekend the Blooms visited Kibbutz Hanaton. On our way there we stopped on the Druze village of Dalyiat al-Karmel. The Druze are one of the minority communities that live in Israel, and I must confess that I know much less than I would like to. This is probably because their religion (an offshoot of Islam) is a mysteric religion whose secrets are not revealed to the uninitiated. From what I saw in my visit to this town, the men wear funny hats that look like pink fezes (as opposed to the flat funny hats we Jews wear) and the women wear beautiful white flowy hijabs. The other thing I know about the Druze is that, in distinction to most Arabs in Israel, they do serve -with flying distinction- in the Israeli Defense Forces. The origins for this exception may be in the natural loyalty of the Druze to the country where they live or because they have been persecuted by Muslim goverments in the area and are grateful for the religious freedom afforded to them by the State of Israel. Daliyat Al-Carmel is a quaint town. Part bazaar, part suburb, and part Druze sanctuary. We stopped for a while, bought some trinkets for our acquaintances and then proceeded to have Druze pita for lunch (a soft pita bread generously spread with fresh labaneh -creamy goat cheese- and sprinkled with za'atar-hyssop, Israeli mountain-oregano- and olive oil, toasted over an open fire oven- on the picture to the left).

Druze Funeral Procession (Daliyat al-Carmel)

After leaving Daliyat al-Carmel, we went straight to the Kibbutz. Kibbutz Hanaton stands on a Tel (a round hill) in a valley close to the city of Nazareth. Its name means in Egyptian "Glory of Athon". Four milennia ago, on the hill where the kibbutz stands today, stood an Egyptian garrison that controlled the traffic along the sensitive valley that connects the valley of the Sea of Galilee with the Royal Road which connected Egypt with Assyria and was, in a way, the most important road in the world at the time. The name stuck through the four milennia of uninterrupted inhabitation of the area. The kibbutz is, like most kibbutzim, a collective enterprise. The property of the kibbutz is owned by all the members collectivelly and even those members who work outside of the kibbutz must give their income to it to be distributed equally among the members. This kibbutz is unique in the sense that it embraces a religious ideology (i.e. that of the Conservative movement) and has several religious institutions inside the kibbutz (such as a synagogue and a mikvah-a ritual bath). In review, we had a lovely weekend at the kibbutz and were given, once again, like everytime we go there, a lot of dreaming material. I will now be quiet and let the beauty of the place speak for itself.

The National Water Carrier and the hills of Tzippori

The Mountains of Nazareth to the Northeast

The Kibbutz´s Neighbors: The Arab town of Kfar Manda