Page 28 - Issue 22

Before Workshop and Shnat Hachshara were established
in Israel, the movement ran farms in rural England /
America / South Africa / Australia in order to train
movement members for life on kibbutz. Farms such as the
one at Springvale near Melbourne, the David Eder Farm
near Maidstone in Kent, and many others - from
Creamridge, New Jersey to Ontario to one near
Johannesburg, existed to prepare chalutzim from the
movement for a life of agriculture and communal living in
Israel.
Below we reprint a letter sent to the movement
newsletter from a member of the training farm in rural
England.

th
Habonim Newsletter, 28 Feb, 1957
“A Letter from the Chava”

At long last the rains have finished, we hope. For the last
few days, the sun has peeped out for quite a few hours,
and the fisrt signs of Spring can already be seen in the
fields. But, all around our house and all over the meshek
there is just one large expanse of squashy, squelchy mud,
and ehere there is no mud there are puddles. So when
we get back to the bayit in the evening, our clothes,
hands, boots and even hair are all covered with mud. The
only solution is to have a hot shower – if the water is hot
– (“Who forgot to fill the boiler?”) and if there is soap left
– and if the other sex are not in the showers!

Still, that’s life on a hachshara farm, and if it sounds a bit
disheartening – whose life does not? Neverthless,
everyone seems to shower nearly every day, so all is
okay when you consider that there are eighteen of us
here, as well as nine in the Noar, and Johnny (our
Shaliach) and his family, and only two showers work, so
you see the whole business ain’t too bad.