When they returned overseas nearly two months earlier, each had traveled solo before meeting again in Cairo. Jim backpacked around Europe and Israel. Tom spent most of those weeks exploring the upcountry of West Africa with his Peace Corps friends and then out to the open plains of East Africa. They both had kept a frenetic pace. And after two hot and dusty weeks in Egypt, they felt burned out. They needed a break.
There was another consideration. The monsoon season in India was approaching, and they weren’t particularly eager to charge headlong into the next leg of the journey simply because that was what Overlanders were supposed to do.
Neither can say for sure who first suggested it, but one of them floated the idea of going back to Israel to work on a kibbutz. Growing up, they’d heard very little about the kibbutzim movement. Jim remembered reading that General Moshe Daya—then most recently of the Six-Day War fame—was born on a kibbutz (Kibbutz Degania Alef, near the Sea of Galilee). Tom, during his visit at the end of the first journey, had heard from fellow travelers that while the work was typically boring, people from all over the world volunteered. They liked the idea of staying in one place for a while instead of constantly running to see the next historical site or catching the next crowded train.
Tom was attracted to the idea of the kibbutz as a communal experiment, where people of different generations live and work together. It seemed to offer a kind of back-to-basics existence, a deliberate step away from the money-and-career-centered life waiting for them back home. Jim liked the idea of spending more time in Israel and exploring some of the areas he had not yet visited. He also wouldn’t object to meeting and working side-by-side with a nice-looking young kibbutznikit.
They flew to Tel Aviv and made a beeline to the office responsible for registering and assigning international volunteers to kibbutzim. Once there, they were offered two possibilities: factory work in a manufacturing kibbutz farther north or an agricultural kibbutz near Jerusalem. The choice wasn't difficult. They would be working outdoors. They’d be a short bus ride away from Jerusalem. Later that afternoon, they took a bus to Jerusalem, then transferred to Egged Bus Line No. 8. At the end of the line was Kibbutz Ramat Rachel.
Within an hour, they had been introduced to several members of the kibbutz and shown their accommodations. The volunteer quarters were simple, single-story buildings, with two rooms on either side of communal showers and toilets.
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| The volunteer "dorm" that was home to Tom and Jim for three (maybe four) months. |
Tom noted that their room was a bit larger than a Notre Dame dorm room; all it needed were some Fightin’ Irish posters. There was a bunk bed and a free-standing single bed. Underneath that bed was a backpack.
“Looks like we’ve got a roommate,” Jim said.
A few minutes later, they met him. His name was Hideaki, a Japanese traveler who spoke very little English. Nevertheless, the boys learned that Hideaki had studied intensely at the University of Tokyo and had performed publicly as a pianist. He had come to Israel for much the same reasons they had: he wanted to do something different. He didn’t want to conform to the strict expectations of Japanese society. As they talked, Hideaki would stop them, pull out a tiny notebook and pen from his back pocket, and ask them to define a word that he didn’t understand. He was determined to learn both English and Hebrew before returning to Japan. The three of them became fast friends.
A Different Kind of Travel
For Tom, the change was dramatic. Only recently he had been immersed in Africa, with all its chaos and unpredictability. Now he found himself in a settled community on the outskirts of one of the world's and history’s most famous cities.
He had mixed feelings about the transition. In his journal, he wrote about how sad he was to leave Africa, describing it as chaotic but somehow wholesome and real. Too much civilization, he thought, could make a person appreciate order while simultaneously longing for the disorder of places that still seemed to be in their infancy.
Still, the kibbutz offered something Africa didn’t. A routine.
The work would be menial, Tom knew, but he intended to find some sense of worth in it. They would have to get up early, but working in an orchard was something neither had experienced before. There was also the attraction of simplicity. Tom wrote about his affection for the back-to-basics philosophy of Henry David Thoreau and the notion that having little could actually mean having more.
And there was another important feature of Ramat Rachel: A swimming pool. After months of traveling, the idea of finishing a day's work and jumping into a kibbutz swimming pool seemed almost luxurious.
Jim was less interested in getting back to basics than he was in getting down to business, the business being picking peaches, apples, and plums. The work itself wasn’t the lure. He was eager to meet his co-workers, both the volunteers and the permanent members of the kibbutz. In a way, he was switching roles with Tom. Tom was always the one eager to meet and greet, while Jim typically held back. Something about Israel struck a deep chord with Jim.
He and Tom would meet another permanent member at 4:30 the next morning, when a man awakened them by banging an Uzi against the steel frame of the bunk bed.
It was time to hit the orchard.