1) Slight of Coin…Slight of Name

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Way back in the seventies I lived on a kibbutz in Israel; the first country that I ever visited.

My kibbutz, Kibbutz Yiron, was situated on the Lebanese border.

When I first arrived I was startled and frightened to hear the sound of machine gun fire coming from the no man’s land between the two countries. At night flares were shot into the sky slowly illuminating the Lebanese rolling hills and the rat tattle of gun fire became my bed time story.

Being young and infinitely stupid I soon wasn’t too bothered by all this. The weather was warm and I would swim in the open air swimming pool at night enjoying the cool waters which were illuminated orange by the slowly falling flares in the sky. I swam and floated to the peppery sound of machine gun fire and before long I thought nothing of it.

There was one day when I travelled by bus into Safed. It was odd to be away from what I thought was the safety of the kibbutz and to find myself in a strange fascinating town.

However, I wasn’t of course very good at reading the Hebrew squiggles that said when the bus returned homeward; and despite asking and double checking I did somehow find myself on the wrong bus and alighting in an Arab village a long way from my kibbutz.
A family helped. They were warm and welcoming. I waited in their living room surrounded by smiling women as helpful telephone calls were made and somehow it was arranged that a car would be sent from the kibbutz to pick me up. I thanked the family for all their help and kindness once this car arrived. The kibbutznik who picked me up though was very tense and nervous and eyed all the villagers standing around smiling and watching with brittle fear.

All the way back I was castigated for being so stupid as to miss the bus and worse for being in an Arab village. Ashamed of causing so much trouble there was little I could say. I was left to sit in cold silence on the journey back through the low rolling hills.

That was the first time that I became aware of how fearful Israelis were and of their dissociation with their neighbours. And worse of their inability to even think about building bridges with those who were slight of name.
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