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Nov. 25, 2011
The measure of success
Kids’ adjustment is mapped on an “aliyah meter.”
EMILY SINGER
There was a time when making aliyah meant traveling thousands of miles on foot or by boat, leaving behind family you might never see again, and with whom you could only communicate infrequently, and exposing yourself to multiple life-threatening hazards, diseases and hardships. Today, a person can get on an airplane, be served a hot, kosher meal by friendly airline personnel, fall asleep to a movie and wake up an Israeli citizen. Upon arrival, one is offered an array of benefits, including housing and education subsidies, tax breaks, and even cash. Still, aliyah is never easy. In this short series, Emily Singer shares her family’s aliyah experiences and stories from their first year in Israel, where they live on Kibbutz Maale Gilboa, a small religious community in the lower Galilee.
Someone once said to me, “You are only as happy as your most miserable child.” When I am walking around the kibbutz and enjoying the panoramic view of the mountains and the valley (which I love to do), I still can’t be totally happy if my kids are sad. When we don’t have any furniture and I am drowning in piles of dirty clothes because it takes two weeks for us to finally get a washing machine – and even then I must get through that pile without the use of a dryer, hanging items to dry on every possible surface, including handles of kitchen cabinets and drawers – if my kids are having fun, so am I.
When we first arrived on kibbutz, my husband, Ross, created what he calls the “aliyah meter.” He checks in with the kids periodically, asking how they are doing on a scale of one to 10. The kids have had their ups and downs, and some of them reached a 10 when they discovered they have unlimited use of the local swimming pool. Our nine-year-old son, Abaye, however, who really misses his friends in Baltimore, and who tends toward the dramatic, declared that he is at “negative infinite” all the time. He loves going to the pool, but it doesn’t seem to tip his meter.
Our first Friday night, as we are finishing up Shabbat dinner, there is a knock at the door. Standing outside is an adorable group of little girls looking for Shai, our 11-year- old, and Abaye. They want to know if the boys can come out and play. Shai is already asleep, but Abaye goes out with them. An hour later, at 10 p.m., our little Casanova returns with four “older women” (Shai’s age). They stay up late drinking (juice) and playing cards (Taki, Israel’s Uno).
Two older girls come by to take our daughter, Rivital, out as well. She doesn’t come home until after midnight.
On our kibbutz, it is common for kids of different ages to play with each other. I am not sure if it is due to the kibbutz mentality of everyone being part of a group, or the fact that there are only a few kids in every grade. It reminds me of when we lived in Vancouver, and Rivital attended Vancouver Hebrew Academy. The daughter of a friend of ours explained to us that, at VHA, a small school, there aren’t any cliques because there isn’t anyone left to be your friend if you start excluding anyone.
The day before school starts, we head to town to purchase school supplies. I have been putting it off, because we received long lists for each kid, all in Hebrew, and the task seems overwhelming. But when we get to the store and explain that we are new immigrants, the saleswoman takes care of us. She takes each kid one at a time up and down the aisles, filling their baskets. She stops periodically to give them choices about the colors of their notebooks and pencil cases.
That evening, while we are labeling and packing up the school supplies for the next day, two boys come over to inform Abaye and Shai that they are going to pick them up in the morning to walk them to the bus stop. One of them stays and plays for hours; he is soon to be Abaye’s best friend here.
The kids’ school is located on a nearby kibbutz that serves kids from six religious kibbutzim, as well as a number of other small local communities. Unlike where we came from in America or in Vancouver, the school does not have big, fancy facilities. Instead, they have a lot of open space and amazingly unique playground equipment that looks like it was designed and built by creative students and teachers. The school follows the ideology of the religious kibbutz movement. They are modest, laid back and have a strong commitment to communal responsibility.
The kids love their teachers and, on their first day, they make more friends. One student in Abaye’s class informs him that he is going to be his personal bodyguard. It is not clear why Abaye might need one, but I suppose it can’t hurt to have one, just in case.
At bedtime that night, without being asked, Abaye spontaneously declares to Ross that his aliyah meter has gone up 10 points. Ross is amazed. He asks, “Wow! Really? 10 points?” Abaye replies, “Yes,” but then the little boy genius points out that 10 points up from infinite is still infinite. The progress may be mathematically insignificant, but we are moving in the right direction.
There was a time when most kids on kibbutzim lived in special children’s houses. This practicality was based on a philosophy that your relationship to the group was more central than your relationship with your parents, whom you would mostly see in the dining hall at dinnertime and on Shabbat. On our kibbutz, children live with their families, but the “children’s house” still exists. They have activities there one evening a week and every Friday morning (the kids don’t have school on Fridays). If the kids have vacation days, they spend them at the children’s house.
However, the Singer kids do not like the idea of being programmed. First, they have not gotten over the trauma of losing their Sundays. Sunday in Israel is a workday and a school day, like any other. If we are up late Saturday night (aka “Movie Night”), they still have to be at the bus stop first thing Sunday morning. If Friday is their only day to sleep in, they are not interested in going to activities at that time.
Second, our kids are American. While kibbutzniks believe in socialist ideals of being part of a group (all for on and one for all, etc.), my kids are used to the ideals of autonomy and personal freedom. Most of the kibbutz children show up at “children’s-house time,” regardless of what is happening there. My kids would like to know first what will be the activity. If it’s a movie, they would like to know what movie and, if it’s a cooking night, they would like to know what is on the menu before they agree to come.
What finally begins to draw our kids into the group is the extraordinary phenomenon of Bnei Akiva’s Chodesh Irgun (Organization Month). Ross and I were never in Bnei Akiva, so the concept takes us by surprise. Apparently, every year, just after the fall holidays conclude and the kids could potentially get back into a routine, an entire month is devoted to intensive Bnei Akiva programming – and sleep deprivation.
The month kicks off with a seudah shlishit, a Shabbat afternoon meal that the kids prepare and enjoy together. It involves some singing and a lot of yelling that can be heard throughout the kibbutz well into the night. Then, for the next few weeks, instead of having Bnei Akiva once a week as usual, it is almost every evening. They return at bedtime, exhausted and covered in paint or mud.
One day, Abaye informs me that he needs a beer bottle for his part in his Bnei Akiva play. Without thinking, I tell him to go to the markolit (the little kibbutz store) and pick one up and put it on our tab. A few minutes later, I get a call from the woman at the store, asking me if I know that my nine-year-old son is trying to buy alcohol. I respond, mortified, that I know – I sent him.
During the last week, preparations for Chodesh Irgun are in full swing. Their teachers don’t give them homework. Every night they are out past their bedtime. Abaye comes home one day and announces that he has Bnei Akiva from 4 p.m. until 11 p.m. I ask if they are going to feed him, and he responds that he will be sent home at some point to grab something to eat. Do they know he is nine years old, I wonder.
Abaye’s schedule only seems shocking until we hear Rivital’s is from 11 p.m. … until 4 a.m.! “Why? Why?” I ask. She responds, “Because it is a laila lavan [a white night, code for an all-nighter]” – as though that explains it.
The outcome of all this hard work is indeed extraordinary. That Saturday night, we are given a tour of the bomb shelter, where they have covered the walls from floor to ceiling with white paper, and painted murals all around. It looks like a museum. The theme is, coincidentally, aliyah. Everyone on the kibbutz is saying it seems like the group chose the international theme that year just for our family.
After the tour, each age group performs a play in the dining hall. Abaye’s play is about a new immigrant who walks around Israel meeting people from all different countries, and learning about what their respective cultures have contributed to Israeli society. At one point, Abaye staggers out on stage drinking “beer” and speaking in what is clearly meant to be a Russian accent. The immigrant asks him what the Russians have contributed to Israel, and he slurs, “Vodka, vodka, vodka!” I am so mortified; I want to melt out of my seat. But then the other kid asks what else they brought, and he responds, “So many things! Security! Gardens! Parks! Entertainment! Pubs! Shopping malls! And so much more!” It turns out, the play is about getting past the stereotypes. I don’t know if it would have met North American standards of political correctness, but it was awesome.
The best part was yet to come. Due to the late night, there would be no school on Sunday. Even Abaye had to admit that his aliyah meter hit an all-time high that day. And so did mine.
Emily Singer is a teacher, social worker and freelance writer. She is currently working on two books. Singer and her husband, Ross, were rebbetzin and rabbi of Vancouver’s Shaarey Tefilah congregation until 2004. The Singers spent two years in Jerusalem and then moved to Baltimore, Md., where Ross was rabbi at Congregation Beth Tfiloh and Emily taught Judaic studies at Beth Tfiloh High School, until they moved to Israel last year. They have four children.
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