Part of my journey into Israel took me into a kibbutz on the Sea of Galilee. Our guide was raised on a kibbutz and we visited one on the Golan Heights, a part of the world that Israel claims, but whose claim is rejected by the Arab world. A notice just inside Jordan where we later entered by land made that very clear. Syria lies just on the other side of the Golan Heights. Every home in the kibbutz contains a bomb shelter.
The picture below is from this kibbutz and it contains a sculpture that honors those who perished in the Holocaust. The ways of the community have changed in that while everything was once communal where one gave everything back to the kibbutz including salary, meritocracy is now embraced. So that if one earned a living as a doctor or a lawyer outside of the kibbutz, they enjoyed the fruit of their labors completely.
Except for the bomb shelters, the place was serene and beautiful. But one was always aware of the underlying tensions, everywhere.
The picture below is from this kibbutz and it contains a sculpture that honors those who perished in the Holocaust. The ways of the community have changed in that while everything was once communal where one gave everything back to the kibbutz including salary, meritocracy is now embraced. So that if one earned a living as a doctor or a lawyer outside of the kibbutz, they enjoyed the fruit of their labors completely.
Except for the bomb shelters, the place was serene and beautiful. But one was always aware of the underlying tensions, everywhere.
kibbutz close to the Golan Heights, picture by Jennifer Chapin, 2017