Bring back the foreign volunteers
Lorde’s cancellation of her concert in Israel due to BDS action brings to mind differences in generational outlooks on Israel (“Losing a generation,” Comment, December 26).
In the 1970s, when my wife and I were a newly married, child-free, debt-free, obligation-free couple, we did what many Australians did: go to Europe. We lived and worked in the UK and used it as a base for touring, helped by the convenience of a company car. The memories of that time spent are very much with us to this day.
But before we came back to Aussie, we thought it important to visit Israel and experience some Israeli lifestyles. We volunteered for a kibbutz in the Upper Galilee packing apples – mainly Golden Delicious, which I still love to this day. At our kibbutz (Yiftah) there were many other young people there – Brits, Americans, Kiwis, South Africans, South Americans, French and a few other Aussies like us. Most were not Jewish, but all were trying to “fatten up,” before going back to our parents in our home countries after trekking around Europe and the Middle East on cheap food, poor sanitation and dirty laundry. Israel was the place to agist and adjust before the onset of conformity and consumerism took hold.
Israel, especially the kibbutz movement, earned a lot of admiration, respect and understanding from the hundreds of thousands of non-Israeli volunteer workers. We saw for ourselves the conditions Israelis suffered under from their neighbors. Kiryat Shmona was shelled several times by the PLO when we were there, and volunteers were shown the results. Even many years later, whilst working in a state school in Australia, people would fondly recall their time in Israel.
We went back to our old kibbutz after making aliya, to see what has changed. We met up with one of our acquaintances who lived there and who remembered us. There are no volunteers there now. One-hundred volunteers were replaced with five Thai workers.
Contrast that with today. Many young people lack the perspective and understanding that we had because we lived, and experienced, Israel, even for a short time. It made many of the nonJews supporters, admirers and advocates of Israel, and many of the unaffiliated Jews also came to learn and appreciate their heritage in a way that Birthright could not provide.
Young people tend to support social causes – something about not having a heart if you are not a socialist in your 20s. They have sided with our enemies and understood their cause,