Fads may come and fads may go but the kibbutz harvest festival stays the same

As I wrote six years ago, the traditional harvest festival was held last night on our kibbutz - and presumably on most other kibbutzim in Israel. The programme is agricultural branches displaying some of their 'goods' - a sheaf of wheat, a young turkey, etc - interleaved with songs and dances. Some of the dances have a long tradition on the kibbutz - the dresses and music stay the same, but the girls wearing the dresses over the years change.

The more things change, the more things stay the same. I found myself thinking that kibbutz is a paradise for children, and that aged 12/13 they will take their place in the traditional bar mitzva class's dance in the harvest festival and that maybe they will graduate to the harvest dance in 7/8 rhythm that celebrates both the seven species (wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates) and the fact the festival is held seven weeks after Passover. If one is really lucky, then one will graduate to the adults' "lovers dance" or maybe to play in the 'orchestra'.

The final display is that of all the babies that were born on the kibbutz since the last harvest festival: 12. The picture on the left shows all three of my grandchildren along with my son and daughter in law, featuring the most recently born. Thinking about this later, I realised that at least one parent of each baby was himself/herself born on the kibbutz and so they are 'third generation kibbutzniks'. A little later I realised that of course this was so as for the time being, the kibbutz only accepts as new members those who were born on the kibbutz themselves, so of course their children will be third generation by definition.

Unfortunately thoughts about this must have been rattling around my head for I woke up at 2 am and started thinking once again whether I had made the correct choice by emigrating and staying on a kibbutz or whether my friends in the youth movement were more truthful. As I point out whenever this topic arises, I had nothing to return to Britain for as my parents emigrated in 1982. A new thought on this topic did pop up: despite there being many Glaswegians and Mancunians at the movement's summer and winter camps (and we always seemed to come home speaking with either a Glaswegian or Mancunian accent), very few of them emigrated. I can't think of any Glaswegians; of my 'vintage' maybe two Mancunians emigrated, but of the previous 'vintage' there were maybe ten who emigrated, most of whom stayed. It wasn't until 3 am that I was able to fall asleep again.

---

This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
594	12/06/2013	London log (2): The Eye and shopping	Holiday, London
955	12/06/2016	Just another proud grandparent	Personal, Grandfather
1148	12/06/2018	Italy 2018 - Parco Valentino	Holiday, Torino, Italy