Party at the cowshed

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.

As my kids will tell you, Kibbutz Maale Gilboa is not exactly the entertainment hub of Israel. We are located two hours from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and an hour and a half from Haifa. The closest city is Beit Shean, where the only “entertainment” we have found is the preserved ruins of an ancient Roman city. They have a “mall,” consisting of 10 stores, a Domino’s Pizza and a kosher McDonalds (home of the McFalafel).

The next closest city is Afula – a half hour away. It contains the nearest movie theatre and a bowling alley that is not easy to find, hidden as it is above a small supermarket, its only sign hanging above the dark back stairwell behind the building. We are pretty sure their equipment is an old hand-me-down they received from America in the 1980s. You have to type the players’ names into the computer in English, despite the fact that no one in Afula seems to speak English and, when you score a strike or a spare, the screen shows a really old version of the classic animated dancing bowling pin. Also, when the machine sets up the pins between turns, more often than not, half of the pins fall over before you throw the ball.

I really should not be complaining about the local entertainment, however. At the bottom of our mountain, right next to the main road, there happens to be one of the most popular tourist sites in the country. Sachne, a national park and natural springs resort, has been named by Time magazine as the most beautiful place in Israel and by National Geographic as one of the 10 most beautiful places in the world. The water has a perfect temperature of 28 degrees Celsius year round. Sachne has flowing waterfalls and big, deep pools surrounded by palm trees and lush greenery. Picnic benches are set up all around and families barbecue on the dozens of grills provided.

You would think that with such a beautiful site right at the bottom of our mountain, we would be at Sachne every day. In fact, as members of our kibbutz, we receive the highly discounted annual membership rate of 100 shekels (less than it would cost for a family our size to go once). The problem is that the place does not meet the safety requirements to which we have become accustomed. To say it differently, Sachne seems to be a death trap for children.

We go to Sachne for the first time a week after we arrive in Israel. For the hundreds of metres of winding pools and waterfalls, packed end-to-end with people, I can see only two lifeguards. One spends most of his time whistling ineffectively at kids who are diving into the water from a frighteningly high cliff, just next to a sign saying, “Danger: Please do not jump off high cliff.”

While my husband, Ross, stays in the kiddie pool with our four-year-old, Adin, I stand in the most central location I can find, trying to keep an eye on 11-year-old Shai, who is walking through an open tunnel at the top of a waterfall on one side of the bridge, and nine-year-old Abaye swimming in the deep pool on the other. I am praying that our 13-year-old daughter, Rivital, who I can’t see at all, is somewhere safe. My prayers are interrupted by our friends’ daughter, who runs up to me screaming that Rivital’s foot is stuck in a waterfall. I have to leave the others to run and get her out. In the end, everyone has a great time, and I vow to myself never to return.

Even so, there is still hope for some good local recreation. We hear from our friend, Mirit (who spent a year in Vancouver working at Shaarey Tefilah and Vancouver Talmud Torah), that they are building a multi-million-dollar ski resort on our mountain. This news is surprising to us for a couple of reasons. First of all, it is a sparsely populated area, comprised mostly of small kibbutzim with residents whose idea of a good time is a party at the refet (cowshed, sometimes meaning dairy farm), which sounds fun to me, but, I’m thinking, the kids might be looking for a little more action. Second of all, it is not at all cold here. We are located 20 minutes from Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi, which boasts the record for the hottest temperature on the Asian continent since 1942. I am not sure if the mountain has ever seen snow. Still, Mirit insists that she has driven by several times and seen it under construction, and we are determined to find it.

Every time we leave or approach the mountain, we look around, but we don’t see any signs of a ski slope. You’d think it would stand out among the barren rocks and wild bulls. We ask everyone we meet, but no one has any idea what we are talking about. Until, one day, a neighbor informs us that there is a big complex being built at the end of the Gilboa Scenic Route, a road that goes down a different side of the mountain. That would explain why we haven’t seen it yet.

Gilboa Scenic Route is a road that we have been warned we travel at our own risk. For our quest to find the ski resort, we decide the risk is worth taking. We follow the road, which we have since renamed the “Gilboa Death Trap Route” to its end. The GDTR is a two-way, endlessly twisting road that, where it is paved, is the width of one and a half cars, with a steep mountain on one side and a plunging cliff on the other. The road is laden with massive potholes, seemingly from an enormous meteor shower. The road is so “off the beaten path” that no one knows who is responsible for its upkeep.

We make it safely down the GDTR and, sure enough, we find ourselves at the end of a fancy resort complex. There is, indeed, a ski slope, but it is still under construction. It is far enough along for us to see that the “snow” is comprised of a sort of white Astroturf that has been rolled down the mountain like two carpets – 100 and 300 metres long. They are just starting to build a ski lift on the side. It looks like it should be ready later this year.

In the meantime, I see a notice one day on the kibbutz online Google group that there will be a party at the refet to celebrate the installation of a new cowshed. This notice is followed up with a massive advertising campaign, including posters, mailings and an article in the weekly newsletter. I can tell it is going to be big. I decide we should check it out.

The party is in the new cowshed itself. The whole kibbutz is there – the pouring rain does not deter anyone. There is a moon bounce and a big blow-up slide. There’s a popcorn machine, ice cream, drinks and a game where children climb into a pit of hay and search for candies. The kids are in heaven.

When the time comes for afternoon prayers, since everyone from the kibbutz is at the party, they don’t bother trekking back to the shul. They all just face south, towards Jerusalem, and pray right there. There must be a special religious dispensation for kibbutzniks to be allowed to pray surrounded by the smell of cows.

After afternoon prayers, there are speeches. One guy gets up to say some thank yous. He begins by acknowledging “those without whom this day would not be possible.” He continues, “I’d like to thank 3219, 3457, 2984, 3542 and 1914 for their contributions.” It takes me a minute to realize he is referring to the cows, who are stamped with numbers on their sides – refet humor!

The next speaker talks about how much milk they have produced and what a successful year they have had, enabling them to expand the business with this new shed. He mentions one particular cow, Felix, “may she rest in peace,” who had apparently broken a national record for lifetime milk production.

The guy who gets up last announces, “And now the part of the evening you’ve all been waiting for ... the hot-air balloon will be arriving momentarily.... Just kidding folks! But, seriously ... the kids of the kindergarten and preschool will come up and sing.”

After the musical performance, we are all invited back to the shed, where the refet staff says the blessing for something new, Shechechiyanu, and cuts the ribbon that has been tied in front of the gate. Then they blast music, open the gate and cows start trickling in. The shed is huge, and the cows enter a few at a time. They begin walking slowly but, when they see the space before them, they get so excited they start to jump. Then, I kid you not, they are dancing! They are bucking about, back and forth to the music, while everyone claps and cheers. The kids are going crazy, dancing along with the cows.

Eventually, so many cows have entered that it becomes crowded like all the other sheds, and the cows go back to just standing there, looking around on the ground for food. The head of the refet announces that the party is over, but no one wants to go home. Kids are still jumping up and down on the gate, clamoring for more.

It doesn’t bother me that we have to shlep out to Afula to see a movie or to eat sushi, or that we trek all the way to Jerusalem for good theatre. There is no entertainment in the world that can compare with what we have here at home on kibbutz. There is just nothing like a good party at the cowshed.

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 in 2010. They have four children.

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