We Really Can Do Anything

As I mentioned before, my WOC companion and sister writer for The Table, Regina Bannan, and I went on a Road Scholar trip to Israel and Jordan this February. The goal of the tour was to help us understand what is involved – culturally, historically, artistically, spiritually – in a land where three dynamic cultures come together – and apart – and live together and live apart.

There are many stories to tell you from this trip (and we could all use some distracting stories in these days, I think!), but I would like to tell one that an Israeli woman told us about her life in a kibbutz in the 1980’s. Back then hostilities with neighboring Arab countries resulted in daily bombing attacks on the Israeli border areas, and she said these settlements were often purposely established near the borders to say to her enemies that Israel had a right to exist and its people were there to stay.

In the 1980’s, this Israeli woman was not only young but especially firey and idealistic, captivated by the idea of standing up for her new country against its enemies and firmly dedicated to the kibbutz socialist ideals of living a communal life in a working farm and small manufacturing community in which all, men and women, shared equally, each person giving according to his or her ability to each other person according to his or her needs. She chose one near the Lebanese border which experienced almost daily bombings. Ducking into shelters at all hours was terrifying, but she was proud they were brave enough to do this for the young country.

After orientation to kibbutz life, they received their assignments. She hoped to get the job she had always dreamed of doing in such a community: picking oranges in one of the lush orchards surrounding her. She got the job.

However, as all the young idealists marched out early in the morning and began picking the oranges (a more arduous task than she had thought), she noticed their more seasoned supervisor was spending the day under a tree reading a newspaper. What happened to equality of labor? To all participating in the work to be done?  To fairness and justice and equal sacrifice? She was upset, angry, but kept on picking. Finally she could not reach one orange high out of her reach. She asked him for help. He told her to get a ladder. She did, but in reaching for the last orange, toppled the ladder and fell into the prickly orange tree. He laughed…Big mistake!

She came down from the tree and sat with him. He yelled at her to get back to work, to start on the next tree. She said she would work when he did. They sat out the rest of the day.

The next day, she came to the orchard prepared with newspaper in hand and, as others went to the trees, she sat next to him and began reading. He ranted at her again to get up and get to work. She answered again, “I’ll work when you work.” By midweek, more than half of her orange picking companions were sitting under trees reading newspapers in silent protest. By the end of the week, they transferred her.

The new assignment was sure, they thought, to curb her attempts at role modeling idealism thereby causing trouble for them. She was to do housecleaning chores for invalid sisters, far from her ideal job.

The sisters, however, turned out to be survivors of the horrendous experimentations performed on twins in Nazi Germany by the infamous Dr. Mengele. To her surprise, the twin sisters greeted her the first morning with tea and cakes. They wanted to sit with her, talk with her, walk with her, listen and laugh and be listened to by her. They needed a companion, not a servant. And so, she walked the kibbutz daily in their company, sat and talked with them under trees, and they seemed to love feeding her and listening to her adventures. Those in charge, of course, were not happy. They decided once again she was not working hard enough and, again, setting a bad example. She was transferred.

This time she had to work in the factory shop where her time was consumed by hard physical labor and little socializing (in all senses of the word).  She learned invaluable skills, and, undaunted by the difficulty or drudgery of the assignments, she worked extra hours for a few weeks and was able to take time earned off to sit by the pool and spend time talking and listening to people again.

When she left the kibbutz, she began educating people from around the world, not only on her own culture, but that of the Palestinians within her country and those of the countries surrounding hers.

As a woman, she proved she could do anything. She could work and conduct effective silent protest; she could bring companionship, solace, and comfort to the suffering; she could do manual labor and spread ideals. She could minister and teach and lead. None of this was “women’s work”. It was necessary life work.

She – and we – will not be limited by any benevolent nor malevolent institution. Ever.