Page 13 - Kol Bogrei Habonim - Winter 20

‘Anglo-Baltic Kibbutz’. They stayed at Kvutza Kinneret: One of the first settlements,
Kibbutz Afikim, mainly in tents, for two founded in Palestine in 1910. Degania was
years, working both on the meshek and in the the first, the Mother settlement. Kinneret
surrounding countryside. Niumka Levanon celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2010.
writes that they would never miss a meal and
that “6/7 olives were worth one egg”!! (For
Nechemia (Niumka) Levanon’s full life
story, see: nechemia.org.)

Later, they all transferred to Binyamina,
started a kibbutz and stayed there for five
years until they were able to set up on a small
knoll called Na’ame. In 1940, there were
Arab strikes against the wages paid. The
farmers became angry and worried about Mid-1940s on Kfar Blum. Shalom drives
their orange crop. They preferred not to with Amulya on his lap, Leah behind,
employ Jewish workers at a higher wage, but with long hair, beside Tsifra
the crop was going to waste, so members of
the Anglo-Baltic Kibbutz were employed.
Afterwards, the Arabs were taken back on.
This enraged the kibbutzniks. The bad feeling
erupted into fisticuffs, the firing of a shot or
two and a few being slung into jail. A couple
were sent to Metulla (known as Siberia!) to
work at the “Snow of Lebanon Hotel". (It was
from there that the birth pangs of Kfar Blum
issued, founded in November 1943, but that
is another story...).
Shalom and Leah’s marriage 1938

These are the views of a 21-year-old British
Jew in a new land. Further reading on the
founding of Kfar Blum can be read on the
internet at: nechemia.org, ‘Nechemia
Levanon – His Life Story’, which deals with
the years, 1938 to 1948.

Addenda: Olim – New Immigrants. Shalom and Leah at Kfar Blum, 1998

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