Reaching The Hill [18 June 2004]

That building, agreed, was the focal point of our community. Built in the 1950s, it was meant to be the prize of the community, express its strengths through an untried prescription of collective vision. In it the members gathered for three meals, mostly including raw vegetables, hard boiled eggs, a slice of yellow cheese, and plain yogurt. The people sat, with newspapers with red colored headlines outspread across their faces. It was just that and the tin tureen receptacle for tossing cucumber peelings, egg shells and olive pits. The newspaper carried on the battle for labor hegemony, or the nuances between Meir Ya'ari's dictums and Meir Talmi's reasonable expositions.

That building, they tell me, was built over a large pit. There was space to house extra rooms, the offices that would be needed. Instead it had been filled with boulders and been built over. In one area, bathrooms were actually installed, but only on one side. In all weather you exited the building and stepped down a flight of stairs to reach it. The building had been borne of the idea of necessity, but also with some notion of modernity attached to it. Still, it never gave the impression of being forward looking for a forward looking community. It had been built with more windows than most structures, yet had remained dark, despite its expanse of glass. In the morning, as the easterly sun shone above the plentiful trees and granary silos, it could only glare on the first row or two of tables, making it an impossible place to sit without first sealing its sliding shutters. The building had been built with three wings. It had opened with two and the westerly was added later. The center room had been used for a decade as the community center. There was a coffee bar, shelves with newspapers and periodicals. Tables inlaid with checker boards for those abstruse enough to gather for post dinner chess. The southern wall consisted of large glass doors, the largest expanse of windows and uninterrupted light into the premise, but these were, at least in later years, covered by heavy green drapes. The light, even with the drapes furled, barely penetrated within a few feet before fading into a rapidly increasing dullness. In a tribute to modernity, a retractable roof had been constructed above the center room. This exposed the dining hall to a starry ceiling on hot Sabbath eve nights. The lounge area had been constructed with huge sliding partition doors. By the time of our arrival the lounge as such had ceased to exist as did the doors, leaving grimy, impossible to clean rails, like a remnant of an exposed trolley track where the asphalt had worn thin. The western wing was narrower and brighter. Its windows faced a green knoll that extended down toward the library and beyond that the view toward the sea.

The interior of the building was decorated by huge panels of gray-hued mosaic stones. A few columns in the center room contained mosaic zodiac signs, as did the floors, but the color being invariably the same, and little cheer having been expended by the inability of the sun to penetrate its confines, rendered it  a conspicuous monotony.

Early morning each day farmers gathered at a few of its tables. They drank coffee and squabbled over the previous evening's most popular TV program. One was either entirely right about the interpretation of events or was entirely wrong. A few of the men sat silently, dreamily stirring their cups of coffee into whirlpools. Others raised their voices to reassert themselves and dominate the conversation. At a nearby table, Parliament was holding its first diurnal session. These were the elderly members vociferating politics under worn greasy work caps. In the distance, white bristled, bestrewed Yudka busied himself with the banging of kettles and trays that had accumulated from the previous night's dinner. He limped silently in his wellies through the approaching dawn. He cheerfully relished the idea of being the first to enter the building, like the beadle with the synagogue keys, where he would boil water for coffee and tea for the first early stragglers that wandered into its confines. After completing his preliminaries he limped off to his livestock which were kept in a ramshackle farm at the edge of the village. This consisted of pens, cages and corrals constructed of makeshift and rusting material; a Polish peasant's hideaway. Fowl, sheep and goats, horses and donkeys and even a pair of camels that insouciantly munched on prickly pear leaves pastured in the muddy paddock. After work Yudka, wearing a blue visored cloth cap would hitch a mottled pony to a green wagon and ride to a field where he would harvest winter grain; usually wild barley and oat with his scythe. He would say, "During the war the animals kept me alive, now I keep them alive" and titter to himself at the realization of this irony. In near starvation, it had been a pledge undertaken a half century ago and now fulfilled.

There were few alternate paths to the dining hall. It had been built on a small parcel of flat ground in the center of the community. At first we walked up the asphalt path and hardly gave much thought to distance or the severity of the incline. The idea that it was "daunting" only came to mind when my father, in a visit in 1991, was compelled to engage it. For him, the building was located a mile away, its access easily secured with a complete panoply of mountain climbing gear. We would set out early, set up base camp near the gymnasium and slip into our crampons, backpacks, hammocks, harnesses and slings, swing our way up hill, armed only with our medieval adzes for whittling away the size of our enterprise; reaching its summit in time for breakfast!

Shortly thereafter stories circulated about the building's virtual inaccessibility, located on the precipice of a sheer cliff like the jagged protrusion the Rangers found at Pointe du Hoc; scaled with grappling launchers hooked into its cliff. Later I came to nearly believe these stories, as I slowly chugged up hill, loaded down by a sack  of weekly laundry, while neighbors' cars indifferently whizzed by me.  It was time to rent a pack animal!


I had begun my farm work in the orchard here. The farm itself was renamed The Cartel, so-called because the hill and plain orchard had recently been reorganized under a single management. Evidently some sort of friendly rivalry had predated my arrival.  Now new efforts at streamlining organization, efficiency and cooperation would be significantly sifted and put into practice.

The crew was rather large. I discovered that despite the diversity of personalities that comprised it, there were numerous similarities that rather than contributing to its dynamism, was more inclined to mock the idea. An economic cloud had descended upon the community, and as someone once said, each individual rather than building on the basis of his personal intrinsic worth, tended to neutralize his compeer.

There was a sense of naive optimism expressed in the childlike enthusiasm of a few of the farmers always willing to experiment with new crops. As such, I had learned that the farm had gone through nearly every available fruit that could possibly hope to survive, either in the stony sloping fields surrounding the community, or on the deeper alluvial soil on the flat plain. These had consisted of apples, pears, and plum orchards, vineyards, and a whole slew of citrus groves. Coffee had been grown and then uprooted. There were long stemmed papaya trees swaying perilously in the breeze, growing out of drainage ditches filled with blue plastic banana wrappers. Green houses were constructed and torn down; papaya, babaco and carambola were grown there. Litchis were found in two sections and one block of kiwi vines defied the climate, surrounded by avocados and bananas. Someone planted jojoba in fields where cotton had once been growing.

The Cartel consisted of more than a dozen members. Hanan had stepped into the post when Ilan had moved into full-time administration. Hanan was quick-witted and sharp. Shabtai thought that he was remarkably promising because he had hardly been working in agriculture but seemed to grasp so much in so short a time. For his perspicacity he was awarded the helm and this, it was construed, matched his ambition. He had come to the community when his wife found work as a teacher. He had previously worked as a photographer for a national daily. He had an engaging smile, but this was just a first impression. He was generally impatient. Safely out of earshot he could disparage one of his fellow workers without much consideration as to who was present in the room. It was this intolerance, matched by his confidence that eventfully led him to find alternate work.

He often relied on Ofir, the veteran of the crew, a colonel in the reserves, with a droll and often mischievous sense of humor that could almost get him into trouble. As an actor, he possessed a sense for the moment that could be fashioned into art. Sometimes this intensity retracted into its own brutal carapace, and he became uncommunicative. Unlike the grinning, almost raffish, energetic and notorious being that contemplated and sought theater in the doldrums of the mundane, he shriveled like a drought infected kernel within its sheaf. I would find myself thinking that I was speaking with this lively animated being that suddenly shifted into silence, staring vacuously at the ragged weeds happily extolling the advantages of leaks under the privy. He instantly swooped from spiritual dervishness in immense Nabel trees to catatonic contentment in the back seat of the Renault van, from a marvel at the bounty of the kumquat fruit's sour splendor, potted in a gray, plastic urea container, to sudden inconsolable brooding.

Planning a moment, he decided to "initiate" a number of young people who had been sent to the farm to work. I had heard that he once insisted that a similar cohort of young people were made to wear spray masks for the duration of a day, although you couldn't convince any of the locals to don a respirator even when their work required it. Shabtai suggested that I used such a mask because of the obnoxious odor that emanated from the spray tank, rather than the contrails that were inhaled in a fixed burst of toxic fumes.

This time Ofir staged a terror attack with the entire devil may care enthusiasm of an adolescent. Combining acting skills and the cooperation of some of the others present, he ignited colorful artillery charges that he had somehow acquired through his military connections. People fled through the orchard, flung themselves down in drainage ditches, covered themselves with piles of dead avocado leaves that littered the ground, huddled in swales, crouched fearfully in culverts as men thudded by in long gangly strides. Shouts billowed, directions dramatically given, new charges detonated; even the smoke grenade with its colored plumes pitched into the brush exploded. As young women cried, Ofir's friends commented on the ride back home that this time Ofir had gone a bit too far. .

Ofir appeared at dusk with all the other men mustered for a drill. "Terrorists" had infiltrated the perimeter. Various vehicles patrolled the outskirts of the village. Everyone armed with their army issue M-16 assault rifles were posted at positions no greater than fifty meters from each other. Interspersed amongst the sentries, vehicles swooshed up the road, stopped, their field phones and walkie talkies cackled, revved up in the distance and faded, enveloped by darkness. A number of troops attempted to penetrate the boundary, take control of a building, grab "hostages" and begin a standoff. A local band would assault the building. The idea was to either interdict the terrorists before they penetrated the defense, or failing that, succeed in limiting the damage. At the end of the exercise the men would assemble in the dining hall to hear the commanding officer's assessment of our war readiness. Ofir would show in a Soviet dun great coat, a red Chinese peasant cap armed with a pre-state Mark II Sten submachine gun, a clandestine manufacture that eluded one of a number of pre-Independence caches that mysteriously persisted.

Shabtai was mild-mannered. For him, a machine with which to pick fruit and his transistor walkman radio tuned to Army Radio was serenity.  Although he did other chores around the farm, picking alone on a machine was his favorite occupation. He did it fast, he did it well. No one bothered him and the range of decision making was restricted to which branch to start picking from, and was confined to him. He disliked being bothered by the other concerns of the farm, or decision making, or being assigned broader responsibilities. Desperate, he had been left in charge of the crew for a day or two.  He preferred keeping things way simpler than they ought to have been. He disdained projects, management techniques, record keeping, creating efficiency by working with precise dosages, calibrated equipment, or inconvenience-like safety procedures when spraying. He said that some people wanted to hang signs with PH measurements on every water valve. What good would that do? This was a pat response to most ideas or efforts at innovation.

At home he had a passion for fish as pets, and marveled at their habits. Otherwise it was hard to remove him from his habitat, where he sank into a torpor of inactivity in his favorite chair before the newspaper and the TV set.

Now Shabtai had a good friend who was quite unlike him. This would be Adam who at the time of my joining the Cartel was employed in administration. As Shabtai was generally inanimate, Adam was an activist's activist. He always had to be active, conducting meetings, participating even when there was little or nothing to be said. Offering an unsolicited and unnecessary opinion, possibly to hear his voice in whatever venue he happened to be present in. He would ask questions that often need not have been asked, serving as it were a utilitarian function of ensuring that the speaker remains alert, even if the audience was not. In this respect he was sort of a functionary whose job was to perform functions whereby people, sometimes stooping into their own  torpor would  suddenly  perk up  and  take  notice; a regular politician on the hustings....himself.  Sometime, he may have thought, that people, important people, would be reminded of that voice that had asked questions, or presented some criticism. They were sure to be reminded because of his propensity to grasp situations for what they were worth, and would ask questions again, or propose something, even something previously unheard of. "Now where did I hear that speaker before?" the Voice from Eilon.

Shabtai and Adam were good friends, but the disparity in their personalities could only be explained by their neat symbiotic relationship, and the fact that this relationship had grown and been nurtured from childhood and school days. Adam seemed to thrive from Shabtai's attention and support for Adam's ideas, in return, there was little pressure on Shabtai to assume any of the responsibility one might have assumed in Adam's absence. These absences were part of his regular schedule, being preoccupied in administrative work for the community. As such, years passed when Adam would inspect the work in the fields, with so much more outside labor employed on the farm. He would leave instructions, confident that the farm could be adequately managed in an evolving system of remote control, and then vanish after breakfast to attend his other responsibilities. Shabtai remained in the field, a blond regal seal of the community's historical continuity, but feigned to step into his "brethren's" shoes.

Adam, who was a naval officer, wore a well grown black beard. He managed his day according to a system of conduct. He was always courteous, always created an impression of listening to other sides in a debate, and was publicly friendly to anyone that might seek to communicate with him. When listening to one of his co-workers or peers he evinced expressions of keen interest and attentiveness. He would bob his head, sometimes when agreeing on a key point he would exclaim "Certainly, of course, of course. There's no question about it"! If he had a question, such as one to undermine his interlocutors hypotheses, he would ask it in a low, probing tone to suggest or imply that the interlocutor's idea had not quite been thought to its logical conclusion, or that he [Adam] disagreed, but intended to gently disarm his "rival" from any misconception or self-delusion. This was a kind of tactical behavior, like a management discipline whereby a secret of success [or power] existed by the conjuring of illusion, that is making the other guy feel good about himself. It was a formula for enabling one to go through the motions of participation and contributing without having accomplished much. Ultimately the decision making remained with Adam.

Another "politicized" aspect to this behavior was the general approval rating, or absence of criticism from his nearly sycophantic friend, who in exchange for his loyalty enjoyed Ofir's patronage. These relations existed to a greater extent amongst the native born. The perception of a hierarchical system wavered and became less formidable the further one was positioned away from its center. If you had moved into the neighborhood you were already positioned and integrating and finding one's place had much to do with being adept and skilled in adapting to local mores. Adam was good at patronizing those he believed most vulnerable to his brand of seduction in order to achieve goals that he identified with.

In contrast Eli secretly entertained a social consciousness, but conducted his affairs without any. He was always right until someone could prove otherwise. By that time Eli had moved up a stratosphere, having lost interest in his competitor's argument. Hanan labeled him "the encyclopedia". Not because he was a savant, a reservoir of information, but because he was omniscient. His single-mindedness would have gotten him in trouble anywhere else, but not here. On the one hand he was a positive force, a can-do guy who could drive a tractor up an impassable trail, or reach port in a tempest, additional proof, if any was needed, of his steely determination and mettle. It only often showed that he was reckless, and to prove an unimportant point, he was willing to take worthless risks and disregard his co-workers. In a management position he ruled as though the farm entrusted to him had become his personal fiefdom, an inheritor of the Crusader, Chastieu de Roi. He did not merely render an opinion, but governed by proclamation. Then he would retreat before a computer in an air conditioned room, compiling the very figures that Shabtai detested, for a presentation before the "patron" with whom trade secrets were shared, rumors quashed and approval sought and sustained.

 Eli replaced Ya'akov, a fairly senior member of the crew, when Ya'akov was promoted to field consultancy in the Agriculture Ministry. Ya'akov, who looked like the amiable brother of the pugnacious Max Baer, a bit burly, curly-haired, constantly smiled. This friendly mien was part of a too fantastic Johnny Appleseed view of the farm, a major proponent for experimenting with new crops, grafting nursery stock onto wild almonds, planting the acacia fever tree with its stegosaurus spikes. He was always thinking of new initiatives and finding a receptive ear to bankroll a modest investment in the farm. He was keen to get things started but then would just as quickly abandon the project. His role was inspirational, and he was a great practitioner of talking shop all the time. He won strangers over to his exuberance. He developed connections. Those connections provided him with exotic fruit trees from the jungles of South East Asia, the foothills of the Andeans, the savannas of Africa. He arrived on Friday, his day off from the ministry with a smile on his face and a pocketful of jackfruit seeds from the Western Ghats of India.- A well worn cheery countenance, beaming eyes that probed below the exterior, having found the inspiration, seeking a brief partner in this enterprise. "Guess what seeds I have brought?" revealing a palm full of seeds lodged in his pocket. They could have been those of the jujube, all the way from China. "How are the tamarillos doing?"

If he consulted with you on a project that you initiated, he would look to take credit for it, or raise numerous arguments against its commission that were neither sensible or gave credit where it was rightly due. If he made a mistake, by dint of his unimpeachable reputation, he would evade taking responsibility for it.  His exuberance was such that he influenced the community into investment and neighbors into unbridled industry, often his experimentation that should have been curbed. The hierarchs, even in their recognition of this trait, willfully chose to ignore it thus perpetuating "the legend".

 Aharon was a silent almost slinking entity. Someone that was never accorded his just due. Friendly enough, he was gifted with a warm baritone voice, ideal for narration, but used mainly to extract opinions similar to his own.  He was one of those slow suffering souls that went unrecognized by his society, so the only paltry revenge that he could hope to extract was agreement of some kind that he just was not imagining the sinister characters whose images cast long shadows on the trunks of sunless trees that ruled his life. He yearned for confirmation that they were in fact there.

Aharon had unruly thick tussled curling graying hair whose mane quickly enveloped his balding head like a cleared area being reclaimed by its forest. Resembling and often bearing resemblance to the personae of the actor Elisha Cook Jr he would sometimes cease what he was doing, bend his head to the side to stare leeringly when anyone came into view. Someone thought it eerie, a timidity that was apt to erupt in a yet undiscovered ferocity. Aharon's wife had just left him and he was wandering alone, or so it seemed, coming to grips by himself. Little sympathy or support was extended his way. He was a foreigner, a non-entity with stubby hairy fingers and an extraordinary slowness, as he walked from one interminable destination to another.

 Meir was chronically late to work and could not sustain himself for more than two hours without taking a break. He would find excuses to check pheromone traps, the progress of a water meter. He would drive somewhere to fetch a container of water or coffee or a barometric reading at the meteorological station. Sometimes he would emerge from a field and walk along the cypress trees that encircled the section. Every day, as the farmers rose to drive out to work, Meir would make his entry, and non-chalantly prepare his coffee, oblivious to the fact that everyone else was already out the door. "Pig eyes", as one ungenerous observer often called him, had just woken at the time that his co-workers had assembled in the building. It mattered little to him, and he was never informed as much either.

As shiftless as he was, he was often amiss about the little details that could make a difference in the quality of the harvest. The prevailing attitude was that he could not be told anything and there were fewer expectations. If he was told something, he reacted as though it was done to simply give him a hard time, jarring him from his revelry.

Yet he was very conscious of the local totem pole, and felt it important to be instructive to the uninitiated, those just feeling their way into this new society. If strangers or other residents of the community visited the orchard, he strained to create the impression that he was high up in the ranks of the hierarchy and not simply just one of the hoi polloi. He did this by suddenly becoming imperious, there being so many examples already present in the field to follow. He raised his voice and shifted his weight. He became insistent that a box be moved two meters forward or two meters backward. He ruffled his weathers. He created attention.

 Uri was an outsider, pleasant smiling and exceptionally long legged. Originally an outsider, he was married to a local girl. We once discovered a mutual interest in jazz. He invited me to his home to listen to his music collection. He lived about fifty feet away from our apartment. I knocked on the door. His wife answered, smiled and left me standing outside while she consulted with her husband. Uri appeared at the door with an embarrassed smile on his face, informing me that the time was not good [it was five in the afternoon]. We would gather some other time. From this I gleaned that no time was really the right time and that the invitation, for what it was worth, was in fact worthless. Not that there was any intentional mean-spiritedness to an invitation once extended and then withdrawn. The invitation was at best a challenge to convention, and the wisdom was in adhering to local custom by not honoring it. This would relieve the bearer of the invitation of the unnecessary confusion that I had inadvertently caused by following up on an invitation not intended to be accepted seriously. Who, after all, was serious?

Yogev was different in that he ideally fulfilled a role that generally could not be filled. Evidently he found his niche with a fondness for amateur mechanics, and the Cartel and banana growers agreed that his place should remain with the maintenance of farm equipment. This was, it was reasoned, as it should be, so that the quotidian chores not directly linked to the harvest could be pursued without the additional worry of oil changes, tire pressure, and various greasings. It also seemed that Yogev was exempt from any of the pressures that occasionally emerged when extra hands were needed to harvest the fruit or lift it off the ground when some storm had blown its bounty onto the orchard floor. Sometimes Yogev would really have little work, but his exemption enabled him to putter about the lot where equipment collected.

In winter he would appear in a greasy army fatigue, always diligently prepared to jot tractor hours and prefigure when an oil filter on any particular tractor was scheduled to be replaced. He had a very pleasant demeanor, a warm and boyish smile, his hair originally combed to reflect his mother's preference when he first attended grade school in the early 1950's. His note pad overflowed with jottings, numerous figures and reminders on oily paper. There was never any room to add more information, but Yogev was always attentive to the idea of maximizing the stationary available to him. He economized. Despite this attention to detail, he phlegmatically went about his business, first silently bicycling up the hill and parking his bike at the garage before joining his colleagues for coffee. He would drive under the hydraulic picking machines with his endearing smile while encountering the workers amid the rumbling of motors. His inquiries were made with a box wrench in one hand and a container of diesel fuel in the other, much like a country doctor making his rounds if all was well.

He could be stubborn, and this especially if he was given a chore to do that interfered with his radio and roving reveries, a head set permanently placed on the mussy coif tuned to the army radio station However he lacked the status to hold sway in any debate regarding priorities and was always forced to defer in what could develop into a quick squabble he would surely lose.

Yogev worked alone, wrench in hand, knuckles moistened in molycote. He generally sat silently avidly devouring his mid-day meal, and finally sated by his simple feasting, beam his shy innocent smile while expressing his gratitude for the stimulating conversation that had never occurred and would never be initiated by him.

The fact is that there were two political activists in our community at this time. One who was constantly organizing lectures, vigils and transport for the masses; the other who was always present at rallies, and promoting co-existence by attending meetings in the territories with Palestinians.  Yogev often devoted his only day off to participate in such exercises. Evidently, one often believed that he was quite passionate about all this, but he rarely said a word about his political beliefs or his beliefs....period! He never discussed ideas, except to raise the prospect that he lacked any, and the question of rare conviction, remained enigmatic. When he did reach these grand gatherings with one group or another of leftists protesting the occupation and expressing identification with the occupied, he had little more to offer the Palestinian peasant whose olive grove may have been uprooted on a rural route used for sniping at Jewish traffic than his serene and silent smile.

It occurred to me that this activity, which mostly engaged him in driving from one part of the country to another [and financed by a budget] created the illusion of action, an iota in a sparse army of ciphers awaiting a decile. When he was summoned to serve in a reservist capacity in the Megiddo prison that housed hundreds of Palestinian detainees caught in the insurgency of the first Intifada he declined to serve. Here his famous obstinacy came into play, but also a courage of conviction that had outweighed other considerations. Yet I could not reject the idea that his extra-curricular bustle across the nation had more to do with filling an emptiness that his neighbors, associates and former classmates were oblivious to.

Yogev's work bridged the Cartel into the Qorein banana holdings. This was a larger labor intensive gathering that included an outfit of "/Aramchiks/" and foreign volunteers that finally gave way to migrant Thai laborers. Its most visible representative was stout, voluble, dodgy-eyed Haim. Through much of the year he appeared in blue resin-stained shorts, a work shirt that appeared to pop in the midst of a convulsion. The shirt revealed a chest composed of a heaving hirsute corsage. A yellow baseball cap with an unfashionably stiff visor was marred by resin concealing another mussy grade school hairdo. Haim was the most opinionated figure in the "bunch". If he had no opinion on a particular topic, just ask him, and he would divvy one up from the depths, and announce it in a loud stentorian voice for all and sundry. No idea could be left unkicked, and no transient soul could safely pass within earshot through the dining hall, even during that early coffee confabulation without Haim raising a furor over the latest proposal. It mattered little which proposal and at what venue it was motioned; last night's general meeting, the latest debate in the Knesset plenum, the latest rumors reputedly said between Smadar and Sima or Hansel and Gretel. He bellowed his beliefs in stark earthshaking simplicity, and you could agree or disagree, but he would never give you an opportunity to reply, or even to etch a word in edge-wise. He sat, a colicky satrap, distending his views that were exaggerated in any case by his bulging oblique swivel-eye. The swivel-eye cast its glance across the entire table of bleary-eyed farmers, much like the frenzied rays of the UN watchtower beam on a black night at Lebanon's Zabakin village. Yet despite the rage that he invoked within him, he sat docile and as quiet as your favorite vole at every general meeting; their sometimes torturous and often contentious debates only spilling out in his expositions at the coffee colloquies, and weaving like an irresolute stream that eventually followed you down, down, down the leaking multiple paths that led us easily from the complications of the hill to our home.

April-June, 2004 Eilon

Barry Steinberg         

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