Exodus - Leon Uris [196]
“Shoo, shoo, shoo,” Dr. Lieberman said, whisking Karen out of the door. “You will see Mrs. Fremont later ... shoo, shoo.”
“Good-by, Kitty.”
“Good-by, dear.”
“You like it?” Dr. Lieberman asked.
“I will be very comfortable here.”
Dr. Lieberman sat on the edge of the couch. “When your children from the Exodus heard you were coming to Gan Dafna they worked day and night. They painted the cottage, they made the drapes. They brought in plants ... all the plants in Gan Dafna are on your lawn. They made a big fuss. They love you very much.”
Kitty was very touched. “I don’t know why they should.”
“Children are instinctive about knowing who their friends are. You would like to see Gan Dafna now?”
“Yes, I’d love to.”
Kitty stood a head taller than Dr. Lieberman. They strolled back toward the administration buildings. He walked with his hands alternately clasped behind him and patting his pockets, searching for matches to light his pipe.
“I came from Germany in 1933. I guess I knew quite early what was going to happen. My wife passed away shortly after we arrived. I taught humanities at the university until 1940 when Harriet Saltzman asked me to come up here and found a Youth Aliyah village. Actually, I had been longing to do just that for many years. This entire plateau was given to us by the late muktar of Abu Yesha, a most generous man. If only our relations could be a model for all Jews and Arabs ... Do you have a match?”
“No, I’m sorry, not with me.”
“Never mind, I smoke too much.”
They came to the center green where the view of the Huleh Valley was the best. “Our fields are down on the floor of the valley. The land was given to us by the Yad El moshav.”
They stopped before the statue. “This is Dafna. She was a girl from Yad El who died in the Haganah. The sweetheart of Ari Ben Canaan. Our village is named for her.”
Kitty felt a flash of—yes, jealousy. The power of Dafna was there even in sculpture. Kitty could see in the bronze that rugged earthiness of a Jordana Ben Canaan and the other farm girls who were in the Ben Canaan home last night.
Dr. Lieberman waved both hands. “In all directions we are surrounded by history. Across the valley you see Mount Hermon and near it is the site of ancient Dan. I could go on for an hour ... it is filled with the past.” The little hunchback looked fondly around at his creation and took Kitty’s arm and led her on.
“We Jews have created a strange civilization in Palestine. In every other place in the world the culture of its people has almost always come from the large cities. Here, it is just the reverse. The eternal longing of the Jewish people to own land is so great that this is where our new heritage comes from. Our music, our poetry, our art, our scholars and our soldiers came from the kibbutz and the moshav. See these children’s cottages?”
“Yes.”
“You will notice how all windows face the fields of the valley so their land will be the first thing they see in the morning and the last thing they see at night. Half of the schooling here is in agriculture. From this village, groups have gone out and started or joined in four new kibbutzim. We are self-sustaining in food. We own our own dairy and poultry and cattle. We even weave much of our own cloth. We make our own furniture and we repair our farm machinery in our own shops. All this is done by the children and they govern themselves and very well, too.”
They reached the far end of the green. Just before the administration building the beautiful lawn was abruptly broken by a long trench that circled the entire area. Kitty looked around and sighted more trenches and a bomb shelter.
“It is very ugly,” Dr. Lieberman said, “and there is too much worship of fighters among our children. I am afraid that condition will last until we win our independence and can base existence