KADDISHEL
A Life Reborn
history, but no one was bar mitzvahed and no rabbi lived at the kibbutz. Traditional Jewish holidays, even the high holidays Rosh Ha’Shana and Yom Kippur, were celebrated symbolically, without a rabbi and without praying or fasting. When a rabbi was needed for an occasional marriage ceremony or for a funeral, an older man who had been a rabbi in Poland would come from a nearby kibbutz and perform the ceremony. The fact that everyone knew that they were Jewish, Zionist, and in Israel gave sufficient Jewish content to our lives without our calling it “religion.” Hope for a Jewish state was increasing, and we could almost taste the possibility of having our own country. We dreamed of gaining world respect as we took a normal place among the na- tions. Appeals were being made to the United States and, at one point, during Truman’s administration, a United States commission suggested that 100,000 Jews be permitted to enter Israel. Politics was discussed constantly. This was an exciting time. A strong labor union, the Histadrut, practically ran the coun- try. Most of the kibbutzim (except for the minority of Orthodox kibbutzim) belonged to the labor movement and it bred most of the country’s future leaders, including David Ben-Gurion. Within the Histadrut, there were several groups of kibbutzim, as well as individual members who lived in cities. Yagur be- longed to HaKibbutz HaMeuchad (United Kibbutzim), an as- sociation of about forty- eight kibbutzim. Another association of kibbutzim was HaShomer HaTzair, which was politically to the left of us. But despite their other differences, all the kibbut - zim that were associated with the Labor Party belonged to the Histadrut. We passionately debated about how the government should be organized and how it should accomplish its goals; the security and future of Israel, its form of government, worker benefits, health insurance, and similar matters were among our leading concerns. In our kibbutz movement, called Meuchad for short, two politi- cal parties were prominent: Achdut HaAvodah, to which about 80
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