A Wall of Light - Edeet Ravel [74]
period etc. in grade 5 but she had to shower
with the guys until the end of grade 6 and she
was very embarrassed.
Nissim73:
I think that’s what the film wants to show—the
group and the collective were more important
than the individual.
Novelist55:
What about in your group, with the 2 girls?
Nissim73:
3 girls
Novelist55:
oh right 3
Nissim73:
In our case the girls were younger than most
of the boys so that it was actually the boys
who didn’t want to shower with the girls. You
know he mostly interviewed people who left
the kibbutz long ago—people who are still on
kibbutz really really don’t like this film. They
feel it’s distorted.
Novelist55:
Well he does leave out one part. We were
encouraged to think independently. I don’t
know about the other kibbutz movements but
I think that’s true of all the Shomer kibbutzim
no?
Nissim73:
Yes but at the same time you were being guided
in a certain direction. It was partly insidious.
Novelist55:
Did you see city people as inferior?
Nissim73:
I guess if I thought about it, but it wasn’t on my
mind.
Novelist55:
Where did Ran Tal get all that incredible
footage?
Nissim73:
He did amazing archival work. I’m dog-sitting
by the way and there’s no Internet here, I’m
using the neighbour’s. It’s a weak connection,
so I might get cut off any minute.
44. October 5, 1973: Shoshana, whom I’ve asked to see, sits on a deck chair outside her Room, dressed entirely in black. She appears to be at ease; she’s taking time off, enjoying the afternoon sun. I say hello and introduce myself. Shoshana shades her eyes and says, “I remember you. You had a good trick for getting rid of hiccups. Block your ears with both hands and drink a glass of water in one go. It worked.”
45. In order to boost the thinning population of Eldar, the Young Guard Federation encouraged a group of young Israel-born adults to join Eldar in 1954. Most were recruited from the Young Guard Youth Movement. A second group followed four years later. In both cases, most of the new arrivals did not last, and by 1960, only 14 percent of the Israel-born members remained. In 1961 the population hovered at 102 adults, 59 kibbutz-born children, and 42 city-born children; a year later it was down to 60 adults. (See Snarey, 1984)
“Every time we sat down for a meal in the Dining Hall, if he was sitting at that table he’d get up and move to another table. He was a heartless man.”
—Interview with Naftali Satie
46. Mess or chaotic situation.
47. The Songs We Sing, illustrated by Hendrik Willem van Loon (1882–1944). The book was a gift for Varda from Dafna, later Lulu’s mother, and the handwritten inscription reads:
12/2/47
Dear Chavera [comrade]—
It has been a real joy to me—your finding the Tongue to the magnificent language of music—keep using it—add to your vocabulary daily—turn and twist your new-found idioms until they become your own—
Wait for me—and together we will speak—in the voice of the world—
Dafna
48. Inn or pub.
49. From Yuval Dror, The History of Kibbutz Education.
50. From the 1922–1944 diary of a young man known only as Takh.i, member of a Young Guard commune engaged in paving a road in lower Haifa and then in swamp drainage and stone clearing; the commune later founded Kibbutz Mishmar Ha’emek.
51. DDT.
52. The Hebrew for “storm” is sa’ara.
53. “The Brave One”; the film won a 1957 Academy Award for best story, though the writer, Dalton Trumbo (of Johnny Got His Gun fame), was blacklisted at the time on suspicion of communist affiliation and could not claim it.
54. Pansies
55.
Novelist55:
Were you afraid of the dark?
Nissim73:
What do you mean “were”?
Novelist55:
Yes, I remember you like to sleep with the light
on.
Nissim73:
When are you coming again? You haven’t seen
my new place in Jaffa.
Novelist55:
I don’t know.
Nissim73:
What time is it there?
Novelist55:
Seven. We haven’t turned the clock back yet.
Nissim73:
I went swimming