Page 90 - Kol Bogrei Habonim - Winter 20
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for avoiding Ulpan at 8 o’clock the next experience at Sa’ad, which is close to the
morning. Gaza Strip border opposite Gaza City, was
not much different from that of the main
The highlight of the machzor must have been
Sadat’s visit. I actually saw him in central group at Beit HaEmek. We all ate in the
Jerusalem that Saturday night (following a hadar ochel and watched films there (one
Shabbat visit to Mishmar David) as the evening was ‘Rollerball’), argued with the
cavalcade drove along King David Street to sadran avoda (with limited success) for the
the hotel. Our rucksacked American jobs we wanted, went to our kibbutz parents,
participant expanded his climbing skills by lived in semi-isolation from the rest of the
taking an Egyptian flag from a lamp-post. world, queued up for one of the few
telephones on the kibbutz, worked six days a
For me, the best gift of the Machon, and of week and rested on Shabbat. There was the
the whole Shana, was the life-long friendship never admitted and subtle sexism that
that I made with my two fellow dati’im in the effectively limited most chaverot to
group, Shlomo Bendahan and Michael “women’s jobs”: kindergartens, kitchen,
Horesh. I already knew them well enough laundry, etc., with the agricultural branches
from machanot, but now I quickly became almost exclusively a male domain. And
fast and almost inseparable friends with chagim were taken very seriously, with
them. We were known as the G-d Squad, and magnificent productions for the whole
the label has never quite disappeared. And, kibbutz on occasions such as Purim and
following in the footsteps of the three datiot Seder night.
in the Hachshara two years previously, we
indeed were sent to Kibbutz Sa’ad to spend
the second half of the year.
Machon. Left to Right: Carolyn Emmanuel,
Jonathan Kalisch, Sue Moss
Photo: Shlomo Bendahan
But there were differences. The food was
Shlomo Bendahan Photo from Shlomo fully kosher, and there was never a work
In the 1970s, a religious kibbutz was not giyus on Shabbat. Most of the males attended
dissimilar to a secular one, and our synagogue thrice daily, often with muddy
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