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By Root 661 0

Persian conquests don’t show up here at all. The Greeks show up, however; the army of Alexander the Great probably built an army outpost here. And then the Romans came—we have thousands of Roman coins. During the late Roman period Eldar was a Jewish village. We found a synagogue, a ritual bath, twelve burial caves. The cave opposite the chicken house was identified by the Talmudic rabbis as belonging to Rabbi Sisi. The Byzantine period was very strong here. We haven’t found a church, but the Byzantines often used the synagogues as churches. Just yesterday we ran into a whole Byzantine complex and an Israelite complex below it. The bulldozer cut a cross-section, you can see it all. After the Byzantines we have the early Arab period, 7th to 10th century. Then came the Crusades; Eldar was a small Crusader outpost with three large forts nearby. Then of course we have the Egyptian conquest; we found some beautiful Mameluke jewellery here from the 13th century. After that, the Turks ruled the region but the population remained Arab. During the British Mandate, Eldar was a headquarters for the commander of the Palestine Liberation Army. That’s why Eldar was raided in 1948. The villagers left overnight and Eldar became an army outpost on 29 October. We arrived two months later, on 13 January, to found the kibbutz. The belongings of the Arab villagers, what they had not taken with them that night, lay scattered all over the place.”12

Dori

We’re supposed to conserve water because water is scarce in our land. But Shoshana doesn’t care. At first it looks as if she cares because she turns the water off for the soap part. We cover ourselves from top to bottom with the soap. Every time it slips out of our hands we laugh and yell it slipped it slipped.

When we’re finished Shoshana turns the water back on. She’s supposed to keep it on just enough to get the soap off but she lets us shower for as long as we want so I don’t know why she turned it off for the soap part. We get a little wild. Shoshana doesn’t care about that either. She’s not in the room.13

Finally she shuts off the water and we get our towels from the hooks on the wall. There’s a piece of sticking plaster over my hook with my name on it. I can’t read it yet but I like seeing my name there. And I love sticking plaster. It smells good. Dafna the nurse lets me have the metal reels when they’re finished because she knows how much I like them. How does she know? I can’t remember. Maybe Daddy told her. She also gives me the tiny bottles with the rubber caps that you put needles into. I love those bottles.

In Canada they have Band-Aids that don’t hurt when you take them off. Mummy bought me a book in a train station in Canada that had two real Band-Aids in the back. Nurse Nancy. There wasn’t much of a story and the pictures weren’t very good but I loved the Band-Aids. On my birthday in Canada my aunt asked me what I wanted and I said Nurse Nancy so I could get two more Band-Aids. Daddy didn’t like that I got a book that was exactly the same as a book I already had but I was very happy. My old grandmother came to look after us while Daddy and Mummy went out and I put one of the Band-Aids on her finger where the top part was missing. I forget what I did with the other one.

Plaster hurts a lot when you take it off. Shoshana pulls it off very fast. Pulling it off fast hurts more—but at least it only hurts for a second. Does Shoshana do it the fast way because it hurts more or because it only hurts for a second? I don’t know. I prefer the slow way.

In Canada children take baths instead of showers and after the bath you get a big soft towel. All you have to do is pat the towel a little on your body. Pioneers rub themselves dry with a small thin towel. I like the Pioneer way better. Pioneers are important. We’re building our land.

Our First Year

16 January 1949. I’m so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open (it seems as if we’ve been awake for the last three days straight). I’ve just returned from the shower room where I met Naftali, who tells me that tomorrow we receive