Hagar looked at him unhappily, taken aback by his blunt manner. She then noticed a woman standing some distance away, hands in her pockets. The woman was also armed and wore a belt with loops filled with cartridges slung over her shoulder, sash-style. Clearly, she was waiting on the first watchman to join her.
Hagar eyed the female guard in the somewhat rumpled, oversized shirt. What first appeared bold-faced and brassy, seemed at least in part as something else: a deliberate attempt to expunge the men-women differences.
“Good flashlight.” The man motioned to the one in her hand. “Can I? It will have better use on guard duty. Your turn will come soon enough.” Without awaiting an answer, he took it from her.
Out in the distance, curious and watching the exchange via binoculars that should not have existed, Mr. Watts gasped at the audacity of the man. But his boss just let loose a startled, amused laugh and walked with an easy gait toward the dining hall.
Men and women in clean white shirts emerged from the barracks and stuccoed dormitories, greeting each other, and making their way to the single-story building with numerous windows.
Joining them, Hagar entered a brightly lit, boisterous hall. It was filled mostly with young people, the oldest seemed to be in their late thirties. She looked around, unsure, then stepped between the two rows of crowded tables. In the first table, someone was strumming a mandolin with some people nearby singing along. Hagar kept making her way through the packed hall. “Shalom,” she finally greeted a seated man with a weathered, tanned face.
“Sit down, sit down.” The man patted the space next to him on the wood bench. She obliged. In groups of five, the diners were sitting on benches meant to seat three comfortably.
A few women pushed open double swinging doors and emerged from the kitchen carrying trays.
“Fish!” hollered one of the serving women. She theatrically turned around, holding high a full tray. “And on a mere Saturday dinner, at that. Fish not from eggplants, not even from eggs, but real ones.” This was greeted with a roar of approval and a round of applause.
“Newcomer?” the man had to raise his voice to be heard.
Hagar flashed him a dazzling smile.
“And gorgeous at that.” The man admired her for a moment. He could not imagine those slender fingers of hers doing anything except plucking the harp, and the patrician nose deigning to smell anything but roses in bloom. “Welcome,” he said. She nodded in acknowledgment and held out a china cup. The man poured her steaming tea from a large metal kettle.
“How many members do you have?” Hagar wanted to know.
“One hundred and seventy-two. We began with a core group of about sixty. This is our twelfth year.”
She took a sip. “Looks like you guys invested a lot of yourself in this place.”
The man shook his head, bemused. “The small cemetery in the back is a testimony. Comrades who succumbed to malaria and who fell to Arab marauders.” He grimaced. “It was not easy, getting up at two o’clock in the morning. Some of us still do, you know. Then we have had occasional locust. They eat up everything. Their larvae…you find these in your bedclothes, on your desk, in your shoes.”
“And now our alfalfa crop yield is on par with California’s,” someone else said. Hagar looked up. A woman across the table was grinning. “Enough, Yosef. You want to scare her off?” She extended a firm hand to Hagar. “I’m Elisheva.”
“Hagar.”
They shook hands.
“This is a place for poets and dreamers to put some of those high-flown ideals into deeds.” The woman gave her a lopsided smile.
“Who is the leader?”
“No leader. Policy matters are decided by consensus.” Elisheva exchanged glances with Yosef. Something was off about the newcomer, but she could not put her finger on it.
Hagar mulled it over. “You say there are no leaders, but assertive people rise to prominence in every community.”
“Sure,” said Yosef. “Yet, those more active and domineering make up a disparate collection of individuals and cliques that are often at odds with each other. This tends to cancel things out. Community decisions are made during the weekly General Assembly, where the timid and the inarticulate are encouraged to speak up. We try to arrive at a broad, genuine consensus.”
They seemed to be enjoying the exchange. People seated close by were listening in.
Hagar liked what she heard so far.
She kept probing, “Do you get to decide what work you do?”
Elisheva replied, “You let the work committee know your preference, and it decides.” She smiled. “We, the women, have largely taken over chicken breeding, beekeeping, and the vineyard.” She pointed at a bulletin board on the far wall. “It comes down to trust: in the committee, in our fellow comrades, in the kvutza and what it stands for.”
“Who has the job of cleaning the lavatories or working in the washhouse?”
“No one. That is, everyone takes a turn doing the truly unpleasant or monumentally boring,” Elisheva explained. “The frequency members are rotated through such tasks is in proportion to the unpleasantness entailed.”
“We have additional committees,” noted Yosef in between bites. “We have one that looks after education, one that arranges lectures, one for housing, one for the kitchen. Those and others.”
Hagar studied the faces around her. They were not the first to establish such norms, but they were one of the very few secular intentional communities to survive past the first few years of existence. She wanted to understand why, to understand the key to their apparent viability. And just as important…could it be scaled globally?
“It’s impressive,” Hagar admitted. She helped herself to some of the food. “Collective settlements, kvutzot, are dotting this valley, over twenty thousand people in all, I was told. With member Jews from South Africa, Romania, Russia, Greece, Poland, and everywhere in between. What is different about here and now?”
Yosef put both hands on the table, contemplating her question. “Neither a sect nor a sanctuary, our settlement has never been self-contained in its aims. This kvutza and others like it have a purpose beyond their own existence. They are but means to reconstitute a Jewish national home.”
So that was at the root of their durability, Hagar thought. At least that was part of it. She pushed on. “Among other things, what makes capitalism work is the sense of ownership in one’s labor and product, albeit with capitalism this comes with a taint.” She peered at Yosef through the rising steam from her cup. “Isn’t this a problem in a collective settlement such as this?”
“Ah, she's a tarbutnikit,” commented one.
“Oh?”
“A culturalist,” clarified another.
“She got a point,” remarked someone from behind. “Russia had a great shortage of electricity during the war, but you could not persuade the people to conserve. Light would be left burning all night.”
“If a service is owned in common by everyone, it belongs to no one,” echoed Hagar, a challenge and a question in her tone.
One of the men picked up on it. “Is there no more to life than getting ahead in the world?” he asked, disdain clear in his voice. “Can there be no motivation but the accumulation of assets?”
“That’s a question awaiting an answer.”
“We’ve answered it,” said Elisheva, putting down her fork. Her eyes focused on Hagar. “A member of the kvutza who gets up at four in the morning and does not return from the fields until dark—is he less devoted than the man who farms a field of his own? The woman who cooks for one hundred comrades, is she any less industrious than if she were to cook for only her family? If one breaks the only gas lamp the collective owns or leaves the boiling milk unattended and it runs over, everyone suffers. Therefore, we care more than we would have had it concerned only us or our immediate family.”
&nb
sp; “So there is a feeling of ownership in one’s work,” Hagar stated.
“Yes.” Elisheva inclined her head. “Most people here are permanent members of an economic branch, be it the orchard or the dairy. And so they take pride in its success, depressed by its failures, and gratified by the knowledge the branch genuinely contributed to the settlement.” This much was true, but Elisheva found herself troubled. What of the more passive and unskilled people the work committee used as floaters, shunting them from one task to another? What of those bossed around by the more dominant people in the work detail? Did they feel pride and a sense of ownership in their domain of work—or a sense of fairness?
Yosef said, “Internally, we don’t use money. Anyway, no one here owns anything but small, private artifacts.
“While we have no money,” he continued, “we do have a currency: respect and prestige. It is gained by one’s dedication, and competition can be quite fierce, both among kids and adults. The respect of one’s fellows has become an important motive; few are willing to jeopardize it by shirking on the job. And since property is commonly owned, there can be no possibility—hence drive—to accumulate assets in order to acquire power and prestige.”
An easy smile played at the corners of his mouth. “As a kvutza member, you can lie in bed sick without worrying that your business or field goes to pot. You live with the knowledge that you and your kids will always be taken care of. You are truly a part of an extended family. And if one makes a poor decision, the group absorbs it, and the consequences are less harsh than for a smallholder.”
Hagar’s forehead creased in a frown as she chewed. “What if some want more than others?”
“We maintain no rigid rule that each member must receive so much and no more. The committee in charge settles such matters. What we have brought about is socialism on a human scale.”
And that last thing you said makes a big difference, thought Hagar.
“‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,’” quoted one chubby member from another table, which garnered him derisive but good-natured laughter and slapping on the back.
“Enough philosophy,” someone cried. He turned to Hagar. “Play the accordion, sweetheart?”
“As a matter of fact I do.”
The grinning member reached for the musical instrument, but then stopped. Someone had just entered the dining hall, and suddenly the air became charged with excitement and tension.
“What’s going on?” asked Hagar.
Yosef gestured. “This man came to call on those interested in establishing a new settlement tomorrow.”
Hagar’s eyes shone in a feral light. This had the ring of something she would enjoy. “What do you mean ‘tomorrow’? You make it sound like a settlement is established in a day.”
“Due to recent Arab attacks, we cannot establish an outpost unless it can defend itself from day one, from the moment we occupy the land.”
“Whose land is it?”
He waved his arms impatiently. “Ours obviously; it was purchased. The point is that on the very first night, marauding Bedouins are likely to attack a new settlement, trying to overrun it.”
Hagar motioned him to go on.
“The pioneering group built portable huts, barricades, and prefabricated watchtowers. They parked them in the settlement nearest to the site. In a few hours, in the dead of night, they will load everything on lorries and trailers. Accompanied by many others, they will form a caravan headed to their new home. Upon arrival, all will get to work. By late afternoon, a new village would be on the map, surrounded by a fence. The searchlight, mounted on the watchtower, will thrust a two-thousand-yard beam to keep the would-be attackers at bay, or otherwise light up offensive targets for the settlement watchmen.
“We’re joining the effort. About half of us are leaving at three o’clock in the morning. We’ll return the day after. If you really want to contribute, join us.”
She suddenly felt like partaking in this little adventure, this little diversion. It sounded like fun. The larger world and its problems could wait for a day or two. “I will join this caravan.”
He barked a short laugh. “Good.”
“Now, am I going to get that accordion, or not?” she demanded, holding out her arm.
Chapter 6
Palestine, the Netherworld
His Eminence, the President of the Supreme Arab Committee and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Amin al-Husayni, looked around uneasily. He’d seen no one for hours. And he’d heard nothing but the thud of his footfalls in the utterly deserted, dark streets. He tightened his grip on his cane and kept on walking, hoping to eventually run into someone. Anyone. It started to feel as if he was the only human being alive.
“Am I in a dream?” Amin al-Husayni finally cried out.
“Perhaps,” came an answer in Arabic from some distance away. “But don’t underestimate dreams; all realities start as such.”
He whirled.
A woman attired in a long, black dress stood at the far end of the alley. As she approached, he noted her lovely, pale face framed by a loose, dark hijab. Moonlight reflected off the blonde hair.
The Mufti clutched his cane. “Who are you?” The distress was evident in his voice.
“A figment of your imagination.”
“Lady, I think you give my imagination too much credit,” stated al-Husayni, his blue eyes wide.
“I sincerely hope you are wrong about that.” Hagar came to a stop in front of him. “The future of your people depends on how imaginative you are going to be in the next few days.”
She gestured him to follow, and the Mufti hurried after her. He did not wish to be left behind in this forlorn, accursed place.
“You’re speaking of the recommendations of the Palestine Royal Commission,” he called, trying to keep pace. Oddly, the dream-like quality of the situation felt liberating.
Hagar turned a corner, and they found themselves in an empty public square. She motioned the Mufti to sit by a table. As he did so, she eased herself into a chair across from him and regarded him frankly.
“Yes, of course I’m talking about the recommendations of the Commission,” Hagar said. “I know they have been brought to your attention earlier this week. Consent to them.”
“I beg your pardon?” said the Mufti.
“The partition solution. This is the only viable path. Accede to an arrangement granting the Jews less than a fifth of the area of Palestine, and you may usher an era of peaceful coexistence and normalcy in the territory.” Hagar liked the spirit of the young settlers and wished to see if some sort of coexistence between the Arab and Jewish populations was feasible.
He gazed at her, expressionless.
She leaned forward. “‘If you are charitable, you are rich,’” she recited the old Arab saying.
As the Royal Commission had asserted, there was a little moral value in maintaining the political unity of Palestine at the cost of perpetual hatred, strife, and bloodshed—and there was a little moral injury in drawing a political line through Palestine if peace and goodwill could be attained in the long run. Partition seemed to be the only way.
His eyes glittered in the pale light of the moon. “Lady, we can compromise, like everyone else,” he stated. “Yet, on certain things we cannot. National independence coupled with territorial integrity are two of those. The right of every human being is to live in his own country peacefully and to administer it according to his own interests and not according to the interests of any other.”
“Inshallah,” Hagar said softly, sarcastically. So that was it. He was not going to entertain political coexistence.
The Mufti of Jerusalem spread his hands. “Our only crime is that we are patriots who want to see our country develop and progress, who want to see our traditions installed and flourishing, and who want to b
e able to govern ourselves and live a life based on self-respect and dignity.”
The man with the neatly trimmed goatee and clear diction was the voice of reason and persuasion. Amin al-Husayni did not look like the kind of a man who had ordered in recent months the assassination of senior people in the rival Nashashibi clan.
Hagar tried one more time. “Your point is well taken,” she told him. “But this doesn’t go anywhere as one third of the population are Jews. The partition, your Eminence; think it through. Carefully.”
The Mufti gripped the arms of his chair and his expression grew hard and resentful. “From the moment al yahud started coming, I knew they were up to grabbing up all of Palestine and establishing a state here, in our midst.”
“And of course you have been right about that.”
He peered at her suspiciously, then relaxed some. “‘Believe what you see and lay aside what you hear,’” he recited and gestured expansively with his cane. “No nation would accept becoming a minority in its own land. No matter how benign the invasion of foreigners may be, the character and political rights of the local population will suffer. We have our own culture and civilization, and we feel as any other nation would feel. The League of Nations had no right to give the Jews someone else’s territory.”
Hagar scowled, not amused by the obvious ploy. “It was not somebody’s else territory,” she said matter-of-factly. “Turkey ceded those lands in the Treaty of Lausanne. You have not held sovereignty over this area, remember?” She regarded him for a moment. “Assuming you do establish an Arab state here, what would happen to the Jews who inhabit the region?”
“This will be left at the discretion of the future government and be deemed most equitable and beneficial to the country.”
“Do you think that the country, as you envision it, can assimilate the existing population of four-hundred thousand Jews?”
They locked gazes.
“No.”
A dark, angry expression crossed his face. “That al yahud long to be in Palestine and are spread throughout the world cannot be a justification to destroy the national existence of another people. The Arabs of Palestine consider this territory as their own, and they cannot give up even one meter of it.”
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