The kibbutz (Hulata) is grateful for our opportunity to speak here. Old debt repayment. Here I absorbed the beginnings of national consciousness, knowledge of the people and the country. Private description - I did not come to talk about this, but lest it help to understand the move - in short:
I came (from America) as a Jew, completely assimilated. Adventure after the Six Day War. From Lod I went to Hulata - for more than half a year (since I arrived) I have not seen Jerusalem, the Western Wall, etc.
Already on the long journey to her patient I began to feel strange and special feelings. The soldiers who were seen everywhere, the warmth and brotherhood, as if everyone knew each other, they were all one family - surely everyone remembers this feeling, and the pride - what soldiers are heroes. My soldiers.
I came to her patient for a short visit on the way to India - and there I was told 'what? You're a Jew. This is your place, this is your family, this is your people. "
It was so natural, so deep. I was carried away. Internal Revolution. Yes, I am not a lonely island in the sea of life, I have known, or perhaps felt that the meaning of my life, my destiny, my self-role, I mean not in rebellion and denial, but in returning to my roots, to (?). How pleasant, how new everything was.
I entered a class on the farm and found a strong love, in the class, in the family - not politeness, though, but real closeness.
And slowly more emotions resurfaced. At first, in conversations at four meals - stories about the fishing work before the swamps dried up, about the beginning of her illness, about the fever, about the conflicts with the Arabs in the hostel, about the beatings and shelling before the war, about the guard who met infiltrators, etc.
And we listened to the songs: "There are more cannons on the mountain, but they threaten Damascus" and also "Jerusalem of gold", and how they all came out of the shelters crying and dancing when they heard about the conquest of Jerusalem.
The first Saturday I was taken to Quneitra, and on the way my uncle (Nahum Carmeli) explained to me the battles, the devotion of the soul, the heroism of brothers. And how wonderful it was to hear about brothers (unlike American soldiers in Vietnam).
I never understood what land is, what land is, but it became clear - all the unity, all the family, that I began to feel it had to do with this piece of land.
We went for a walk in the West Bank (today I do not call it that, but I tell about then), I saw how many people love this country, are interested in it, in its nature, in its agricultural potential (there was a long conversation about water sources. So boring - but I saw how my son The class sit captivated) and mostly step on it, climb mountains, bathe in its springs, look out over a landscape.
We went back to the farm, and my aunt (Shoshana) told me about the orchard, a little far from the garage, I went alone and found it. What a wonderful feeling. Joy, and most of all the joy that I discovered all sorts of things in myself that I never imagined existed - I was excited about every new tree, every path.
Then I discovered the Jordan, and then Jalbina. Every trip that went out of the farm I tried to join. Then I walked alone. I spent days in Meron and Nahal Kaziv and the Golan Heights
....
Spring came and the whole company went out to work in the garden. And I am ashamed and embarrassed and the pressure inside me increases: I also want to grow things. Beans ... and (no sequel)
Eli (Carmeli) Horowitz
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