."n" • ' ' . 5 Tuval: Portrait of a Young Kibbutz I 1 1 i TRAVEL TIPS Fares to S.A. increase for flights in April and from June onwards. Try to plan your trip for March or May and save $87.- per ticket. ★ Merrick Silberman will be happy to visit you at home at a time convenient to you. to help you plan your travel arrangements. No obligation — please call Merrick at 656248. ★ Our usual friendly telephone service for all your reservations. Ask for Judi or Sabrina. ★ Remember — anyone can sell you an air ticket — but only a professional can save you money and help you plan an enjoyable holiday overseas. We pride ourselves on our professionalism — t r y u s . NEW ROUND TRIP FARES TO JOHANNESBURG For travel commencing March or May April. June to Oct. Apex (13 days/1 month closed dates) S 9 7 7 $1064 Excursions $1190 $1279 (13 days/3 months - open dates) Youth/Student 1 year S I 0 7 8 $1078 NOTE: 6 Shekels Payments on SAA's Pay Later Plan M E R R I C K S I L B E R M A N For emergency after hours travel service: Home; Tel. 48301 5 GREENTOURS TRAVEL 81, Hayarkon St., Tel-Aviv 63903 Tel. 03-656248 / 652565 / 652566 r □ do A bi-monthly journal CONTENTS f o r O l i m f r o m S o u t h A f r i c a Editorial Board: FEATURES: Chairman. Editorial Board: Lct)n Charncv Tuval; Portrait of a Young Kibbutz 4 Director P.R. & Hasbara: l:dna Kowarskv Riva Rubin; An Anglophone Poet in Israel 8 E d i t o r : R i m a B c r n s Integration Through Tennis 12 Printer: Otpa/ Ltd.. lel-A\i\. P E O P L E & E V E N T S 1 4 SPORT M e m o r i a l t o a R u g b y P l a y e r 1 8 Telfed is published by the South African Zionist Federation. P R O G R A M M E O F E V E N T S 1 9 Israel Office, Bet Clal. 5, Druyanov Street, Tel-Aviv 611 U W E L C O M E H O M E N e w A r r i v a l s 2 0 P.O.B. 11556, Tel.; 03-290131 NOTICEBOARD 23 CLASSIFIED 25 J e r u s a l e m O f fi c e ; 9. Alkalai Street. Talbieh Tel.; 02-630801 H a i f a O f fi c e : 6. Nordau Street. Hadar Tel.; 04-641058 Beer-Sheva Office; 11. Hamaccabim Street COVER; Ariel Freeman of Kibbutz Tel.; 057-73811 T u v a l b r e a k s f r o m w o r k t o survey the Galilee. Photo by Jeremy Lerman (Tuval). COVER STORY Tuval: Portrait of a Young Kibbutz by Rima Berns The lavender sunset spills across the green and It is three o'clock in the morning and sleepy white-rocked splendour of the Galilean hills. bodie.s pump themselves with caffeine and sugar From the lookout on the mountain you are in an effort to shake off the chill of the cutting hypnotised by the passage of the cars and buses winter wind. Bundled in rubber boots and work on the ribbon of road so far below, flowing clothe,s. masks and gloves, they are preparing through the valley as though it were meant to be for that most dreaded of kibbutz tasks — the a river. The lights of Carmiel, and farther away, sending of full-grown chickens to market. The those of Haifa, begin to twinkle in the dusk. Mishloach. For the next three hours they will There is a breathtaking grandeur to the scene — run back and forth through the ammonia-acrid ail the more poignant in the shadow of the large stench of chicken excrement, three squawking, carved stone that is an epitaph to the three who clawing, pecking and understandably resentful died in the Lebanon war, Three young lives out chickens dangling upside-down from each of 60 on the kibbutz. Five percent. clenched fist. The chickens, heavy from two months of gorging and no exercise, are Hung It hit hard, the loss. The kibbutz was only a year into wire cages and fork-lifted onto the huge and a half old. and bristling with hope and trailer-trucks sent to fetch them. It is lllthy. idealism and the collective wisdom of unpleasant work, and it is unclear whether it is summersful of Habonim camps in South Africa the chickens or the kibbutznikim who resent it and England; and then three were dead and it most, but it has to be done. Chickens are a was hard to see the idealism through the blood lucrative and relatively secure business venture. a n d t h e t e a r s , a n d a p a l l c l u n g t o t h e There are growing pains here too. and during mountaintop and the inhabitants of the infant the break there is heated discussion over the kibbutz. time and energy that has been wasted through They have not forgotten, but they have carried poor planning. "Tov." says someone on. Tuva! is three years old now and there are 80 philosophically. "Kacha lomdim." Thus we young people working there, and they are learn. excited about what they are creating. Time has softened the pain a bit. but they have been There is much to learn, much to decide. The forced to mature quickly because the protective community is in its infancy and there is only one embrace of a childhood home is thousands of baby thus far. The population ranges in the kilometres away in Cape Town or Sydney or most part I'rom age 20 to 26. and children are London, and threre are businesses to be built — almost the last thing on anyone's mind, so lumberjacking. chickens for market, the noone knows yet whether the children — when assembly of 'James Bond' briefcases, llowers they do come — will sleep with their parents or for export (geraniums, poppies and in communal living quarters. And there has leptu.spermum), dolls filled with lavender that been no decision on how big the kibbutz ought has been homegrown and dried. to grow or how holidays and study breaks will 4 be allotted. For the moment the members and r a i n s c a m e , t h e r o o t s o f t h e fl o w e r s w e r e c a n d i d a t e s t a k e b r e a k s f r o m t h e k i b b u t z ravaged nightly by wild boars attracted by the whenever they feel the need — and for however only moisture in the soil for kilometres around. long desire dictates. It is part of the joy of being There was anger and confusion on the kibbutz small, that people can be trusted to feel as the boar-attacks continued. They tried sitting personally responsible for the community, and watch in the critical midnight hours, but the not to abuse its privileges. pigs smelled them and stayed away until they The sun is pushing its fiery head over the got tired of their vigil and returned to their beds. horizon as the men and women trudge bone- And then the pigs attacked again. So they hired a professional hunter from the Arab village at weary to a feast of a breakfast prepared by the the base of the mountain, and Leon who is in night's guards. Bits of feathers cling like ice- crystals to their hair and eyelashes and there are charge of the fields sat up with the hunter until hands cut and bleeding from the claws of late in the night, and sure enough the pigs came. indignant chickens, but they laugh and joke and But the hunter had fallen asleep over his gun load their plates with mushroom omelettes, and the thieves escaped unscathed. fried onions and chips. There is a kid on the Then they tried leaving the tractor running all kibbutz now, a birthday present from Kibbutz night with the lights on. growling its industrial Kishon down the road, and he is bleating to noises and stinking of humanity, but when Leon greet the day from the bomb shelter entrance came to turn it off just before sunrise he saw the that is his home. boars, undeterred and unalarmed, greedily rooting in the soil by the light of the machine In the fields around the small collection of that was meant to frighten them. The electric buildings are the flowers, and there is shouting fence was a last resort, but even so it was not and laughter as the day's crop of poppies is until the rains came that the marauders ceased picked. There is an electric fence around the their visits. More growing pains. lield, because in the late-summer before the (continued on next page) 5 Portrait of a Young Kibbutz dining room at lunchtime as it did the night before when everybody watched an American in the little doll lactory the sewing machines comedy about going into the army and laughed whir and fingers move across bright patterns as but did not really believe that their own fates the smell of lavender permeates the blue work would be as fun-filled and mischievous as the clothes and soothes away the lingering scent of Hollywood spoof pretended.