Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [96]
At the northern end of the Sea of Galilee they came to a kibbutz named Degania, which was lush and filled with date palms and banana groves. Degania lay below sea level in a natural hothouse. This was the “mother” of Palestine’s kibbutzim, now thriving in its twelfth year. Here was the Garden of Eden, the kind of settlement the pioneers had fantasized about back in the shtetl one of the few tangible fruits of Zionism thus far.
North of Degania was wild country, a dangerous place. A convoy formed to take Misha and Nathan and supplies to the last settlement, known as Kibbutz Hermon. Past Huleh Lake and a nasty swamp, Kibbutz Hermon was the end of the line.
MOUNT HERMON, a small but mighty mountain of nine thousand feet, laid her skirts down at a convergence of three separate districts, Palestine, the Lebanon, and Syria. Mount Hermon’s foothills held an assortment of impoverished Shi’ite Moslem and Druze villages, built into the steep terrain for protection. After the turn of the century the Jews had established an elite mounted guard called the Shomer, or Watchmen, who protected the distant settlements. They traveled by horseback, spoke Arabic, and dressed in Bedouin robes. Their skills in dealing with raiders and marauders became legendary. A group of Watchmen established Zionist settlements at Tel Hai and Kfar Giladi. These outposts came under heavy Arab attack and after sustaining severe casualties, the Watchmen were forced to abandon them.
A few miles beyond Tel Hai and Kfar Giladi sat Kibbutz Hermon, which had successfully fought off the attacks and remained the farthermost Jewish settlement in Palestine. Beyond its perimeters lay Baniyas, a magnificent grotto and oasis where mountain streams flowed down to form one of the headwaters of the Jordan River. Once the land of the biblical tribe of Dan, this was now a no-man’s-land. Ruins of Dan and Baniyas and an ancient mountainside fortress that had held against the Romans were all within walking distance of the kibbutz.
Although it was a mere fifteen miles from the Sea of Galilee to the foothills of Mount Hermon, the climate underwent a drastic change, going from the below sea level semitropical to the moderate climate of the mountains, with cool nights and a snowfall in the winter.
Nathan had heard of the leader of Kibbutz Hermon, a heroic figure named Ami Dan who had arrived during the World War, had become a roving Watchman for a short time, and then established the kibbutz in 1917 with ten men and two women. Kibbutz Hermon was able to hang on because of Ami Dan’s personal leadership after Tel Hai and Kfar Giladi had been abandoned.
Ami Dan, it appeared, had earned his reputation when he gathered a group of Watchmen and crossed into the Lebanon just before the harvest and torched the entire Arab Marjioun Valley, then afterward went back and discussed peace with the local mukhtars and chieftains. His message had gotten through loud and clear. Kibbutz Hermon was never attacked in force again, but was constantly being sniped at and raided by small parties of marauding Bedouins. Although it was relatively safe, precautions were always in effect.
Kibbutz Hermon had grown to sixty members, a third of them women who now included Bertha Polokov. Their greatest pride was the children’s house where a half-dozen babies had been born.
Despite the abundance of water, the variety of crops was limited because the ground was of porous limestone. Because of the altitude and coolness, apple and fruit orchards flourished and bore standard crops along with a centuries-old olive grove.
The convoy stopped at an outer stockade wall rimmed with guard towers. They entered a compact village center built of native black basalt rock that held a men’s and women’s barracks, a building of private rooms for married couples, the children’s house, farm buildings and offices, and an all-purpose recreation/dining hall, library, and clinic.
“Misha! Nathan!” Bertha Polokov cried, racing over