The summer of 1975 in Glasgow, Scotland, was only consistent in its inconsistency. One day the sun was there, the next, gone. There seemed to be no end in sight to my work or the rain. My feet ached from pounding the pavement—marching from one town to another, trying to sell anything I could, and running three to six miles every night to keep fit. I was sixteen years old, ambitious and bored.
However, things were looking up. Earlier in the year my parents had contacted a London organization called Kibbutz Representatives, and after the completion of much paperwork and the exchange of substantial funds, my sister, Ruth, and I were about to be packed off for an eight-week stay on a kibbutz in the Holy Land. From the day they told us they’d arranged this trip I was unsure what to expect, but as the time to pack my bags grew closer, I was really quite excited. I was certain it was going to be a fun, eventful trip, and I thought the experience would shape how I would live the rest of my life. I was right on both counts.
In 1975 Glasgow Airport was small compared to other airports around Britain. You could arrive 30 minutes before your flight and still be early. We would fly to London, where we would meet the rest of the group from the UK and Ireland, and then on to Tel Aviv. We spent a bumpy hour on a British Airways Trident aircraft—it was only the third or fourth time I had flown and I disliked the experience intensely—and before long were on the ground at Heathrow, where we would transfer to El Al for the five-hour flight to Tel Aviv.
I stood at the El Al counter with my platform shoes tied round my neck for safety. There was no way I was losing them; it was the 1970s and I was sure that every Israeli would want to see my impersonation of Gary Glitter. After Ruth and I checked in, we met some of the people who would join us on the way to Israel. Ruth was going to stay with one of my uncles who had lived on a kibbutz for many years, so she wasn’t on the same program as I was. My program dictated that I spend six weeks on a kibbutz and then two weeks touring with the group. According to the tour leader from Kibbutz Representatives, the group would split into ten groups of three to four once we landed; each of these smaller groups would then go to its own kibbutz. After six weeks on the farm (which is basically what a kibbutz is), we would be reunited for the tour.
I looked around and saw a young guy wandering back and forth between the check-in counter and the tour leader. He looked as lost as Ruth and I felt. Not being the shy sort (sales cures you of that rather quickly) I took my boarding card, walked up and introduced myself.
“Alan Zoltie,” I said, offering my hand.
“Andrew Henry,” he said, taking it.
“You excited?” I asked.
“Maybe,” he replied, taking a drag from a freshly lit cigarette.
“What Kibbutz are you on?”
“Hazorea. You?”
“Dunno, I need to find out.” I went off, with Ruth in tow, to find our leader. Then I noticed the looks on everyone’s face. I had become—or rather, my feet had become—the center of unwanted attention. My platform shoes were making quite a splash, and not for the right reasons. This was obviously going to be a shorts, T-shirt and sandals situation, and it was clear that my shoes were turning into this expedition’s first running joke. But I couldn’t dump them or give them to someone to take home, so I was stuck with them.
I saw our fearless tour leader heading for the exit. “Yo! Jimmy!”
He turned.
“Alan Zoltie. What Kibbutz am I on?”
He looked down a long list. “Hazorea.”
So Andrew, my first contact, and his tobacco habit, would be my best mate. Suddenly, Jimmy informed us that boarding and security checks would take an hour, and we departed for passport control, then security, then security again, and then, at last, the plane. It was a huge 747. I’d read about them and seen them on TV, but this was my first time on board such a monster aircraft. It looked big enough to house a disco and a bowling alley.
Ruth and I ended up in the very last row on the right side of the plane. I had a pamphlet explaining all the details of this marvelous aircraft in my hand—and was right in the middle of reading that a jumbo jet could fly above all known weather patterns, which was a comfort—when without warning we were hurtling down the runway at 250 kilometers per hour on our way to Israel. On our way to a new and different life, if only for eight weeks. This was the trip that would turn the boy I still was into a man. It was the beginning of my beginning. I was certain that it would be an emotional roller coaster, but while taking off from Heathrow I had no idea how fast that roller coaster was or how high (and low) it would go. When I returned, I would be fully aware how hard this planet was to live on, and how different the rest of the world was from Glasgow.

The state of Israel was formed in May of 1948. It had become a dream for all Jews in the diaspora to visit the “promised land” at least once in their lifetimes. As a result, the feeling of personal accomplishment—of celebration—when the wheels of our 747 hit the ground was extraordinary. Everyone on the plane began clapping and singing. All around were smiles, tears, prayers and gratitude. Strangers were shaking each other’s hands and hugging. From our seats at the back of the plane, Ruth and I were in fine position to witness the aisles come alive with happiness. It was clear that everyone felt they had “come home.”
The doors opened and warm, humid air spread through the cabin like a fever on the march. In those days there were no gates attached to the terminal, and because Lod Airport was still under construction, we were sitting in a remote part of an inactive taxiway. There was a stampede to get off the plane, and many of those who did then got on their knees and spent five minutes kissing the runway and looking towards the heavens, as if impersonating a pontiff arriving in a foreign land. It was nearly midnight, but the sultry air was exceptionally strange to someone arriving from a Scottish climate.
After progressing through immigration and baggage claim we all met outside, bags in hand, our excitement peaked and our thirst for adventure at the ready. Ruth met our uncle Jack, who whisked her away as soon as she claimed her luggage. I wouldn’t see her again for six weeks. My group, on the other hand, was ushered onto another bus and taken into Tel Aviv, where we would spend one night in a hotel. The bus journey took half an hour, but from the looks and moves that some of the boys were making towards the ladies I could already see the “casual” relationships in the making. It wouldn’t be long before the sexual exploits of these impromptu couples became talking points of every waking minute during the days to come.
At the hotel we roomed with members of the same sex who were going to the same kibbutzim (plural for kibbutz). Andrew and I ended up sharing a room, and other than the fact that he couldn’t go ten minutes without a “fag,” our night was quiet and filled with anticipation for the next day’s arrival at Kibbutz Hazorea.
Meanwhile, my platform shoes were (as I feared) being openly ridiculed by all and sundry. I was beginning to wish I’d never brought the damn things. The beach was only two minutes from our hotel and I’d seriously considered walking to the Mediterranean Sea and throwing them in. But it never happened. Instead, they would be my companions through hell and high water until I landed back in Scotland. This was Israel, land of Moses, Abraham, and Jesus, and no platform shoes were required. Some in our group wore sandals, while others “went native” and walked barefoot. I was reminded that the Israelis were hard people who had endured compulsory military service, wars, and much more. They were also people who didn’t give a shit about 70s fashion.
With roll call at 6:00 a.m., I felt fortunate to have gotten four hours of sleep. At breakfast, I amused myself by trying to figure out who had been fucking whom. The dead giveaway was the tears of separation that appeared in the eyes of couples headed for different kibbutzim (to be honest, usually from the women). The usual verbal drama—“You just fucked me because you could!” and “You don’t love me then?”—poured itself out on top of our fresh vegetables, hummus and breakfast conversation. One girl got so upset at the way she thought she’d been treated that the tour operators threatened to send her back to the UK.
Andrew and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, rolled our eyes and focused on eating as much as we could before the bus came to carry us off to the Galilee. We’d heard that life on a kibbutz meant hard work and we wanted to be well-fed while we could be.
By 9:00 we were on the road. By 9:15, we were both asleep in our seats as our bus meandered along Israel’s substandard road system. A jolt shook me from my slumber and as I opened my eyes I could see Hazorea spreading out before me. My new temporary life was about to begin, and it would begin with a bang.

In the 1970s, the average population of any kibbutz was approximately 400 residents. Most were immigrants, most of whom had opted for a communal life on a farm rather than joining the rat race in one of Israel’s three largest cities. Kibbutzim were run by committees made up of some of the elders and sometimes an occasional entrepreneur. When the kibbutzim were formed in the early 1900s, their purpose was to farm the land, feed themselves and perhaps some of the local towns, and be self-sufficient without becoming isolated. It was said that those who decided to live on a kibbutz were the ones who couldn’t make it in the “real” world.
But in reality, they were often people who’d arrived from countries where life had been terribly hard and they just wanted to live without having to worry each day about their survival. They felt secure in the knowledge that the community would take care of them no matter what. On a kibbutz, everyone farms together, eats together and learns together. All costs, from electricity and water to food and medical care, are taken care of by the community. Everyone is equal. It’s communism without the dictator or bread lines.
Andrew and I, along with two other girls, stepped off the bus and into this world. We were escorted into what seemed to be a huge communal dining area that could probably seat up to 500 people for a meal. We were offered seats, cold drinks and food while our team leader finished his paperwork. Eventually, every I was dotted and T crossed and our leader vanished. I felt a quick chill at the thought, “Oh shit, we’re on our own,” and then we met the adults and kids who would become our adoptive families for the next couple of months. Along with them, there was another gentleman who was a perfect advertisement for an aging cowboy: about 65 years old, small, chubby, with a gun holstered, Wild West style, on his belt. He and I would become quite friendly, but that wouldn’t happen for about a week.
An older woman walked up and shook my hand. “I am Hava (pronounced Chava),” she said, “and I will be your kibbutz mother.” Her husband, whose name is lost to my memory, and then two of her children, one of whom was the same age as me, followed suit. A similar scene was playing out all around me with all the people who had joined me on Hazorea. Ever so gently, we were being coaxed into our new lives.
Hazorea was large in comparison to the other kibbutzim we’d seen that day. It had about 800 inhabitants at that time; you can see what it looked like back then here:
http://www.hazorea.org.il/ViewArticle.aspx?articleID=113. The whole property totaled about 300 acres, with chicken coops and fishponds to the west of the residential areas and a polyethylene bag factory to the south. It had dwellings of two or three different styles, a theatre, swimming pool (really a pond, but more about this later), dining hall, and offices. The funniest thing to me was the plastic bag factory. After working my tender young arse off for two years selling plastic bags, I found myself in the middle of nowhere with yet more plastic bags! However, at that time the bag factory was fairly new. The bread and butter of this kibbutz were the chickens.
German Jews had populated Hazorea, and so it was no surprise to find that Hava and the rest of her family originated in that country, as did most of the other permanent residents. German Jews were renowned for being yeke like, which basically means “precise and regimented.” In the few minutes I’d had to look around, I could see from the layout that this place embodied those qualities. It was clean, neat, and orderly.
On any kibbutz, volunteers come from all over the world to work, to learn Hebrew in an intensive school called an ulpan, and sometimes just to get away from something that they just don’t want to be part of any more. On Hazorea we had men and women, boys and girls, ages 16 to 35, from South Africa, the U.S., Australia, Europe and many more countries. Some were Jewish, some not, but all with one goal: to be part of this new country, this wilderness that had turned fertile, and this potentially life-changing experience.
Avi, Hava’s son, escorted me to my sleeping quarters with Andrew following along accompanied by his newfound family friend. We were quite surprised to learn that we would be sharing rooms with an Israeli and not with one another. The kids “dorms” were actually huts, where all the children from age four upwards slept. That was customary on a kibbutz at that time: all the kids were separated from their parents and schooled, fed and housed in a different part of the complex. On Friday nights, instead of eating alone, all the families got together for a reunion of sorts. It was quite strange to witness at first, but we soon became accustomed to their ways, and most of them turned out to make good sense.
My room was sparse, with one cupboard, a fan and two beds, both single but quite comfortable. Avi would be my roommate, and he immediately won my enmity by offering my platform shoes pride of place at the end of his bed (while he and two of his buddies shared a barely-concealed a laugh in their native tongue at my expense). Damn these shoes I thought as I pushed them under the bed. If all went well, I wouldn’t see them again until I got off the plane in Glasgow come September.
After settling in and trying to communicate in awkward Hebrew/English (Hebrish?) phrases with some of the other kids, we newcomers were whisked off to the dining hall for dinner and then to the work station to find out what we would be doing for the next few weeks in the way of hard labor. We were there as volunteers, as were all of our group and all of the other groups bringing kids to the Holy Land. It didn’t matter if you were Jewish, Christian or any other faith (and there ware many other faiths) we were all there for the same reasons: to help, learn and—hopefully—have sex with people we would never see again.
As I walked into the hall, a vision of female loveliness approached me. She turned out to be Sally, an American from Maryland. She was slightly older than I, slim and short, with the bubbliest personality of anyone I’d ever met. She would become my friend in more ways than one, but more of that as we move along. This night was “Get to know you” night, and Sally started the ball rolling with an unsolicited “Get to know you” peck on the cheek, followed by an invitation to her place later that evening. I went in eager anticipation, but her place turned out to be like mine: filled with people and with no privacy.
As the day ended, Hava summoned me to her home. She let me know that in two days I would begin my working experience with the chickens. This was great, because it gave me 48 hours to settle in. She also announced that I would no longer be called Alan, and that everyone would address me by my Hebrew name, Eli (pronounced Ellie). “Chickens?” I thought, “Sounds easy enough.” Boy, was I going to be proved wrong. Naively, I told Hava and her husband that chickens would not be a problem, and then it was back to Sally’s dorm, just in case—unlike the chickens—she had more to offer than a wee peck.

I hate swimming. In fact, I’m so bloody useless that I look like a total prick in the water. Often, when I do venture into a pool for a quick dip, the lifeguard is throwing me the life preserver from the moment I begin my stroke because I look like I’m drowning. I get seasick just looking at a bath filling up. For years I have avoided cruise vacations, holidays that demand swimming pool recreation and anything remotely connected to getting wet, either by chance or by choice. Fishing? Not me, not unless the fish is wrapped in newspaper and comes with chips. You get the point.
In the middle of the Hazorea complex lay a pool of sorts. It could be more aptly described as a reservoir, and although the water was grey (as it would be in any hole which had been excavated for the storage of drinking water) the kibbutzniks used this pond as their swimming pool. It was about 50 feet long and 20 feet wide with sides that sloped violently towards a V-shaped bottom seemingly 20 feet deep. Those dimensions made it extremely difficult to stand up, feel comfortable, and then kick off into anything resembling a shallow end. This made swimming impossible, at least for me. The fear, from the minute I set eyes on this pond, was too great for me to even attempt the 20-foot crossing, let alone contemplate paddling the 50 feet from end to end. The kibbutzniks laughed, cried, cajoled and enticed, but Alan was not for moving. After four weeks of abuse, Alan would not budge, until…but that’s another part of the story.
After two days, Andrew’s and my time of leisure ended, and we woke to the realization that working on Hazorea was going to be hard. Our work hours were from 3:30 a.m. to 11 a.m., six days a week. After 11 a.m., our time was our own. On this schedule, we both found ourselves pondering—often out loud—things like, “When is party time?” and “What kind of holiday is this going to be?” All the other new volunteers did the same. Those who had been there a while and knew the system prepared us for the hard slog that lay ahead, but the thought of rising at 3 a.m. every day seemed daunting—that is, until my rational brain kicked in and I realized that was the coolest part of each day. Duh!!
From that perspective, it made perfectly good sense to utilize that time for work and not play. Israeli summers are brutal. Often it is more than 90 degrees outside with 100 percent humidity. While 3:30 a.m. was tolerable, 3:30 p.m. was horrible. Bathing was useless, and it just compounded your desire to stay clean, which was impossible.
On that first workday morning, just as my alarm clock rang, the air was still and not too humid. I thought I detected just a little chill, though whether that was nerves I’ll never know. I rose with some vigor in my step, got dressed—the customary working boots, shorts and kibbutz denim shirt—took my hat, sunscreen, and canteen and headed to the dining room to report for duty. Andrew followed, as did most of the volunteers who had also been consigned to similar work. It was pitch dark with just a smidgen of moonlight and the occasional shooting star. The walk was slow and quiet, but once we got through those swinging doors the room was a hive of activity. There seemed to be a real buzz about a new dawn, another new day in their land, this land, the land of Israel.
Andrew made for the fresh veggies and hummus. I made for the water and then for the fresh fruit. Most of the others just sat, smoked and talked about news or sport from the previous evening. We couldn’t understand a word unless they spoke to us in English, but it was nice to be recognized and appreciated. Most of the residents had made a point of coming up and welcoming us all personally before telling us how much they knew we’d sacrificed to be with them. Sacrificed? No way! I was still ready and waiting for all the supposed sex parties, binge drinking, and all the other things one normally does when going on vacation.
A bell sounded, and we were ushered into groups. Andrew and I went with the chicken crowd, but without doing that chicken dance. Outside, we were handed some gloves and a stern warning that this job was going to be tough. Tough? Feeding chickens cannot be tough, I thought, as we walked the short distance to the coops. Don’t you just throw seed on the ground and watch them all eat it up in a frenzy? Think again, oh foolish young man. We were about to enter Hell, our bodies ripped to shreds and our minds destroyed by the stench, horror and disturbing truth of how the world received its chicken. I would soon discover why KFC was always being criticized for the way its chickens are treated before they are cooked to finger-lickin’ perfection.

Some Jewish humor…
Jews don’t go to the gym to lift weights, they take a non-Jew with them to do the lifting!
If Tarzan and Jane were Jewish, what would Cheetah be? A fur coat.
Israel is the only country in the world where the ultra-orthodox Jews beat up the police and not the other way round!
Why don’t Jewish mothers drink? It interferes with their suffering!
Rim shot. Please, hold your applause.
The point is, Jews tend to take a unique view of things. So you can imagine, as we walked into that first chicken coop and found ourselves surrounded by what appeared to be about ten thousand chickens, all looking at us with panic in their eyes, that we looked back with even more panic and dread than any chicken could ever muster. Andrew and I assumed we were there to collect eggs. We were very wrong. Suddenly, our boss, Moshe, blurted, “I will show you how to pick them up, Ezri will then show you how to box them!”
Box them? What the fuck? Before we knew it, Moshe was knee-deep in screaming hens, all trying to escape the Reaper Himself! Fearless Mosh, as we would call him, was braving feathers, chicken shit and rampaging beaks, all out to get him and all seemingly without a chance. His technique was simple, relentless and effective: picking each chicken up by its legs from the underbelly, he turned them upside down as they pecked violently at his hands and eventually carried at least three in each hand to a crate. There Ezri then took over by quickly binding their legs together with a plastic tagging system and then throwing them unceremoniously into a wooden box, where they would eventually be taken to the slaughterhouse. Clearly, 20 years of experience, no matter what trade you are involved in, counts for something.
Andrew mastered Mosh’s technique within moments. I, on the other hand, had no wish to even think about being involved in this “cull.” The process may have been described by our hosts as “efficient and humane,” but in reality we faced seven hours of bringing death to thousands of our fellow creatures. I stood there, silent and contemplative, for more than just a few seconds, wondering, “Is this why I came to Israel, to kill chickens?” I never kill anything, not even flies. Killing chickens was far down on the list of things I wanted to do during my time in the Holy Land, right below “Step on a land mine.”
Overcoming (at least for the time being) my instinct to run, I shouted, “Excuse me!” again and again, but no one seemed to be listening. I whispered to Andrew, “I’m out of here”, only for him to shout back, “No you’re not!” But I was. I had no intention of staying inside this concentration camp for chickens, whilst the great outdoors of Israel stood but a few yards away, pleading for my participation in its well-being and upkeep! So I did what any honorable sixteen-year-old would do in such a situation. I lied my arse off.
“I can’t do this,” I said, standing with a very straight face in front of Moshe.
“Why?”
“Because I have an allergic reaction to animals of any kind, especially when I have to touch them.”
He looked at me with a slight smile and said, “What happens to you?”
“Eh…I vomit and I go red all over with a rash.” I was smiling now. “It’s hard to stomach and it will put me out of action for weeks.” It sounded so good even I believed it. Moshe, however, was skeptical.
“Can you try?” he asked.
“Why would I want to?”
“OK, then why didn’t you say something to Shimon, the works manager, when he directed you to come here?” This was a very good question, and now, with all the others watching this little tete-a-tete closely, I summoned up one more lie. “I had no idea I was coming here. I thought he said KITCHENS, not chickens.”
No doubt because there was so much work to do, Moshe decided to throw in the towel. “Report back to Shimon and he will find you something else to do,” he said. “You need to wait until he gets into his office at seven.” It was only 4:30 a.m., so I had two-and-a-half hours to figure out more lies that would keep me from being sent to the cows, the chickens or the fucking fish.
The sun’s gentle orange glow was about to lift the curtain on another day of sweltering red-hot madness as I walked my walk of shame away from feathers and death. Boxing up those chickens was necessary, but it was horrible and it just wasn’t for me. Relief with a capital R washed over me with every step. Two and a half hours? Heck, I would sit outside Shimon’s office for two and a half years if it meant I didn’t have to go back to Death Row! As color slowly but surely returned to my cheeks, my eyes focused on a lovely pair of legs approaching in the semi-darkness.
“Whatcha doin’, Scotsman?”

It was Sally, full of all the joys that dawn might bring.
“Looking for a job! Where you going?”
“Work of course,” she said, “and I’m early. Want to go for breakfast?”
“I ate at 3:30, went to kill chickens and chickened out. I am now the black sheep of this place, and off to see Shimon to find suitable work.”
“Why’d you crap out?” she asked.
“I’m not into killing animals—or people for that matter—and this was a massacre.”
“Are you a vegetarian?”
“No”
“Buddhist?”
“Maybe?” At sixteen, I thought a Buddhist was a bald man living in a monastery in Tibet, so after a quick second thought, I realized that “maybe” was not the best answer. My face went red.
“Don’t be embarrassed, let’s see what we can get you to do where you’ll feel comfortable,” Sally said. “I know Shimon and his wife, because I watch their kids in the day school. He’s a great guy and he’ll sort you out.”
“Yes? Good! But I was told he’s not available for another two hours.”
“Let’s go to his house, and if he’s not there, we can go to the dining room and keep on searching until we find him.” As she said this, she grabbed my hand and whisked me away to the sound of my heart skipping several nice little beats.

“When you go on vacation, what do you expect?” It was a statement I will never forget, uttered in jest by my new best friend, Shimon. When I arrived at his home with Sally in tow, he’d been in his garden watering plants, mostly cacti. Shimon was curious as to why I was in his front yard and not in the chicken coop. After I explained to him that I had animal allergies, his facial expression may have said, “Fuck you Alan, you lazy bastard,” but he’d been good enough to sit me down and tell me the story of how his grandfather had come to Israel to be one of the founding members of Kibbutz Hazorea while fleeing the anti-Jewish uprising all across Germany. No matter what his grandfather’s misgivings, fears or medical deficiencies were, said Shimon, he did what he had to and he did it with pride.
I stood and listened while Sally sat drinking tea brought by Shimon’s wife, Sara. He insisted that if I was susceptible to working with animals, I’d have been having issues from the day I’d arrived, because on this kibbutz animals were everywhere. I listened intently to Shimon and without batting an eyelid, I told him my issues only arose when I was in close proximity to cows, chickens, or any other animal he chose to mention. Without missing a beat, Shimon called his dog and before I knew it, the monster Labrador retriever had me pinned to the ground and was licking my face adoringly.
I am so fucked.
“Puke now, Scotsman,” barked Shimon.
Eventually, I was able to push the amorous canine off me and regain my balance and “sea legs.” Shimon wasted no time.
“Okay, so you don’t like chickens or cows, Eli, what else can I do to make you happy? What were you doing in Scotland? They have sheep in Scotland, no?”
“No sheep, Shimon! I don’t want to work with animals, please!” Suddenly, a brilliant idea hit me. “In Scotland, I sold plastic shopping bags and electronic goods.”
“You did? You know we make plastic bags here on Hazorea?”
“I do, but I haven’t been inside the factory yet.”
“OK, we will get you a job in the factory—” he paused for effect with a twinkle in his eye, “—working the night shift.”
I was stunned. How, if I had to work nights, could I possibly attend all the sex parties, binge drinking and other kibbutz activities that I’d yet to figure out actually existed? But I had no choice.
“I’ll take it. When do I start?”
“Tomorrow night. You will work from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., and we will give you instructions for your job by tonight. Go home, have some sleep and report to the factory around 4 p.m. Talk to Chaim; he will let you train with one of the other workers for a few hours so you know what you are doing. Perhaps, after one night, the chickens might be a more attractive alternative, Eli? What do you think?” He laughed, and even Sally was sniggering in her rocking chair, holding what had become an empty teacup.
“Want me to tell you your fortune in my tea leaves?” she asked.
Accompanied by my little white lies, off I went, hat in hand, back to my dorm to catch some Z’s. When I woke I would officially be a factory worker. Some vacation!
At 11:20 a.m. my door opened and in walked Andrew. I may have been half asleep, but he was half dead. His hands were covered in blood, bird feathers, and the ripped remains of gloves. His clothes and boots were covered in chicken shit. He took one look at me and uttered these immortal words:
“Why did the chicken cross the road?”
“Dunno.”
“Because he took one look at this place and thought, ‘Fuck it, I have no patience for these bastards or their murderous methods.’”
I said nothing. His demeanor, his smell, his look of utter exhaustion, they said it all. He was an inch away from total collapse. After he replayed his last six hours to me— not once but twice—the night shift inside that poly bag factory just sounded like a cakewalk.
When he had run out of poultry-related horror stories, Andrew said, “So, what happened to you?” Without much ado, I related the whole Shimon experience to him.
“Lucky fucker,” was all he could muster, before he exited, headed to the showers and then collapsed in his own dorm. We were learning a hard lesson: this was Israel, land of Moses. This was not a place to vacation.
Remember the swimming hole? My immediate goal, after eating a modest lunch and before going to the factory, was to make an attempt at swimming across its 20-foot width. By now, all the kibbutznik kids my age had completed their studies, and with school out it was pool time for most. In just a few days, my inability to make it across the water had already subjected me to heckling and a barrage of insults. My aim was simple: make it across, just once, and silence all my critics. I knew I could do it, and I was sure that today was the day.
With swim shorts on, chest out, and a brave face I headed into the water to a chorus of catcalls and whistles. It was all in good fun, of course. However, one step at a time, my confidence began to wane. I began to chant a mantra in my head: “Shit, I can’t do this. Shit, I can’t do this.” Those words echoed continuously in my brain as the water became deeper and the slope to the bottom of the pool became ever steeper. Then, with the click of an Uzi submachine gun held by a returning army officer called Ralph who was now encamped at the edge of the pool along with fifteen others, I lost my resolve, turned and ran for shore!
“Come on!” they all screamed. Encouragement and insults rained down on me, but both were completely lost amid my terror of a horrible death by drowning in the land of Israel. Embarrassed beyond words, I quickly picked up my hat and sandals, and exited stage left, making a beeline for my dorm. The fits of laughter from my so-called new friends slowly faded until all I could hear was the chirping of crickets.
On the bright side, I was sure that I would make amends in my new position at this bag factory. I changed clothes and I was off, ready to learn a new trade before dinner time. It was time to clock in and get started on my efforts to help Israel conquer the world with Plastic Bags by Eli. “Night shift?” I thought. “Piece of cake!” Problem was, that cake was about to collapse because, as I was about to find out, it had no icing to hold it together.

Ahh, Club Med. I had read the brochures, seen the TV ads and even met one man who’d been to the south of France three times just to shag, drink and be very merry, and lived to tell the tale. So as I approached the entrance to Plastophil, (pronounced “plasto peel”) a conversation I’d had in Glasgow with that man, Jerry Brown, came rushing back.
“Son,” he’d said whilst supping his pint of heavy in the local pub, “I went on Club Med three times in fact, and I fucked myself senseless, but—and I’m only telling you this cause you’re a Jew—I heard that going onto a kibbutz in Israel beats Club Med hands down.”
We were on lunch break from working in the warehouse at my father’s business in Rutherglen, which at that time was a part of Glasgow’s ever-sprawling suburbs. I’d just told everyone that following year I would be off to Israel, courtesy of my parents’ wishes that I visit the Holy Land. Jerry had obviously been jealous, and because he was in his early twenties (a massive gap in age for fifteen-year-old me) I’d taken his words literally. From the minute he’d said “fucked myself senseless,” my excitement to be part of “Club Med For Jews” had been festering and growing.
Now, however, as I walked into this modern factory, with the outdoor heat mixing with the indoor heat and my shirt covered in sweat, I was beginning to seriously doubt Jerry’s words. I hadn’t had a sniff of sex nor seen any evidence that this sixteen-year-old virgin from Scotland was going to become a fully-fledged member of the shagging club. In fact, it looked likely that my “fully fledged member” would remain tucked firmly inside my pants for the immediate future. I thought, “How the heck am I going to shag Sally while I’m working nights in this shit hole?”
Without warning, my thought process was interrupted as a huge bear of a man approached me with a menacing smile and the largest hands I’d ever seen. This was Chaim. “Eli, Eli, Eli” he said. I looked around to see where the other two Elis were.
“That’s me!” I said with as chipper a manner as I could muster. As I smiled, Chaim gave me a smothering hug and spoke to me in the heavily accented pidgin that was the native Israeli’s version of English. I’ve tried to faithfully reproduce a snippet of it here:
“Sank you veree mach for come to Eesrael. You mek us veree proud and you geev us all hope.”
You get the picture. Back to regular English. “Come Eli, I will give you a tour.”
We walked up and down the factory. I had been in similar factories with my dad in the past so all the machinery was familiar to me. They had six extruder machines, six converters, and four printers—two two-color, one four-color and one six-color. They specialized in producing food packaging and two of the converters also made plastic shopping bags. The factory was nicely laid out and very clean. It took only ten people to run it 24 hours a day. With plastic extrusion, the machines are rarely turned off and because Hazorea wasn’t a religious kibbutz (even though some of its residents practiced their faith to the full) all of the machines ran though the Sabbath, which in Israel commenced on a Friday and dusk and finished Saturday at dusk. Sunday is the first day of their week in Israel, as it is in most of Middle Eastern countries.
Our tour ended and my host offered me a cup of Turkish coffee, which I politely declined. “Chaim, I have been in similar facilities before and I know all about these machines,” I said, feeling terribly knowledgeable. “Which one am I going to be working?”
“You’ll be working the extruders.”
Gulp. “All of them?”
“Yes. Tomorrow, when you arrive at nine, or maybe you come a little before, we will have everything set up to run through the night. I will show you how to check the quality is consistent, and how to determine when to cut the bubble and start a new roll of sheeting.”
Polyethylene is blown in a bubble and then stacked in rolls of flat sheeting. This is how you get two sides to every bag. “Shouldn’t I have help to do this?” I said. I was certain there would be other people inside the factory watching over me. After all, I was only sixteen.
“Rani will come once every two hours,” he said, pointing to another man in a blue denim shirt and shorts. “He will be double checking you are doing okay and that the machines are running normally. If you need him urgently, you pick up this phone—” he pointed to the blue rotary phone next to him, which began to ring, as if on cue. He answered and had a not-too-pleasant conversation in Hebrew, which I presumed ended badly because he threw the receiver back onto its cradle and then swore in German.
“Sheisse.”
“All okay?”
He turned to me. “So, Eli, you need to remember, you never liked cows or chickens, so you NEED to like plastic!”
His sarcasm wasn’t lost on me. It bothered me that everyone now knew I couldn’t hack it with the animals. We shook hands, then he hugged me again and told me to go get dinner. It was now around 6 p.m. and the whole kibbutz was gathering in the dining hall to partake of the evening meal. That night there was supposed to be a concert of Israeli music, and Sally had asked me to meet her at 7 p.m. to make sure we went together. This was the first time I’d eaten in the dining room with the whole kibbutz, having been invited to Hava’s home on the previous two nights to dine with her and her family. As I walked in, Andrew was limping like a wounded soldier.
“Having fun yet?” I asked him.
“Fuck off. I can’t move.”
“Tell them you’re allergic and can’t work with animals.”
Andrew was in too much pain to respond with the kind of obscene suggestion my jibe deserved. As we made our way to the buffet to get some food, my eyes found Sally, already at a table, seated, in deep conversation and holding hands with Ariel, a godlike blond Israeli guy. There are very few blond Israelis, and the two of them looked like they were about to screw each other’s brains out just by touching. I instantly lost my ravenous appetite, told Andrew he’d have to eat alone, and dashed for my dorm. I didn’t surface until four o’clock the following morning, having missed out on the concert and any fun that might have been had, Sally or no Sally.
I couldn’t understand what had gone wrong. Why had I believed I’d had any chance with this beautiful girl from Maryland? I lay in bed thinking, as only a heartbroken sixteen-year-old boy can, “If only I’d gone to Club Med in the south of France.”
My day was about to begin, and I figured it had to be an improvement over the previous day. I was mistaken. It would turn out to be a very long day indeed.

At 5 a.m., when you know you’re not going to start work until nine that evening and you lay wide awake contemplating 24 hours without rest, and your prospective new love has just been shagged by someone else, life stinks.
It was time to swim across the pool.
Off I trotted in the dark, towel in hand, mind in gear, ready. Halfway there, I stopped dead in my tracks. What if I get into trouble in the water? Who will be there to save me? I told myself I didn’t care, but I came to my senses about three seconds later. The pool would have to wait until another dark night when no one else was around. I turned round and headed off to breakfast with all the chicken workers. Andrew was already munching on his hummus and an egg when I approached him.
“I thought you were working nights,” he said through a mouthful of food.
“I am.”
“So why you here?”
“How much sleep does one need?”
“Your girlfriend shagged a blond Israeli guy last night.” Sticking the knife in.
“Yep,” I said, trying hard not to look upset.
“They were quite vocal in the room next to mine. Kept me up into the night. You missed a great show. Oh, and the concert was good, too!” Twisting the knife. He was messing with me as friends will, and I was trying hard to be nonchalant.
“Whatever turns you on,” I replied.
“She’s loud you know, and very demanding. Not for you, I’m afraid.”
Could he rub it in any more?
After breakfast, when everyone went to their place of work, I decided to pay a visit to Shimon to see what he actually did and how he did it. His office was next to the dining room, and although he was supposed to begin work at 7 a.m., you could always find him behind his desk by 5:30 or six at the latest.
“Shimon!” I shouted as I walked though his door. “Ma shlomcha?” (Hebrew for how are you?) I was learning. My vocabulary was increasing by the hour.
“Tov Eli, Tov!” which meant he was good. From his large smile, he looked good too. “Why are you up? You don’t need to be up this early.”
“Yes, you and 20 others have told me the same thing. I need to keep busy, Shimon, tell me what else I can do? What do you do? Can I help you?”
I knew he could see the frustration in my eyes. “Sally?”
“Uh, sort of, but not all her.”
“Listen Eli, there are many nice Israeli ladies on this kibbutz, you should try with them. They will love you. Trust me.”
“Shimon, you asked me what my ideal job would be while I was here, remember?”
“Yes, and did you come up with something? You want the cows now?” he laughed.
“No, I want your job. I want to be in charge of what the volunteers do each day. I know I can do it and I’ll be good at it too. You can train me in a day, and I can do it from lunch time until I go to Plastophil in the afternoon.”
Shimon said nothing. He just looked at me intensely, and honestly made me feel slightly uncomfortable. I presumed I’d asked for the wrong job, or insulted him, but that was far from the truth.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he began. “If you put in a good shift for a week in the factory, I will consider your request. Don’t let me down, and we can talk again next week.”
I was delighted, so much so that I decided to go for a run, which in 90-degree heat was no mean feat. I put on my running shoes and headed for the front gate, running along the perimeter of the entire kibbutz and back, about a four-mile jog, with some intense effort required to get up one steep hill at the end. After I finished, I showered and went back to bed for a nap, only to be rudely awakened by my roommate as he came back from high school at noon. My five o’clock work time was drawing closer, and I was excited to begin my manufacturing experience. Plastic seemed destined to play a major role in my life.
After spending the hottest part of the afternoon in the shade reading the enthralling memoirs of Golda Meir (one of my favorite books ever), I arrived early for work at 4:00 ready and willing to partake of my first ever night shift. Chaim was waiting for me, ready to explain everything I needed to know: when I could take a break, where I could grab a bite to eat, the do’s and don’ts of when I could call him, and most importantly, how to never fall asleep no matter how tired I might feel!
I said, “B’seder” (“okay” in Hebrew), and within a short time I was operating the extrusion machines. Well, not quite operating them. More like watching them work. There wasn’t much to do at first, and I began to wish I’d brought my book to read. I sat and watched the electronic gauges and made note of all the figures. Once every two hours, I was told, I would have to change spools, and that after the first change, the rest should be easy.
Around 8:00 I began to feel hungry, and as I sat listening to music playing on a radio I’d been left with, my mind began to drift to Sally and what she was doing with her new lover. I couldn’t believe she’d gone off with him. My mind kept going back to those positive vibes she’d been giving me. Why was I rejected? Why was I so naive? Why did everything—
BUZZZZZZZZZZZ!
“What the fuck was that?” I jumped out of my seat and was shocked to see an ocean of plastic spread across the entire floor. “Oh shit! I am in deep trouble.” Plastic was everywhere: not only on the floors, but the bubbles had burst on two more of the extruders. This was really bad. I knew I’d be thrown off the kibbutz for falling asleep and letting this happen.
My embarrassment was complete when out of the blue, Chaim walked in with his wife to check on me. When he saw what was happening, his bewilderment was overwhelmed by his instant anger. They probably heard his yell back in London. My days on Hazorea seemed numbered. Looking at the rage in Chaim’s eyes, my inclination was to run, and run fast. I looked at my watch: 10:23 p.m. Then I looked back at Chaim. I had no choice. I had to beg for forgiveness.

After screwing up so badly, especially doing something that should be taken seriously, to expect the axe man to do anything other than tear my head off might be a pipe dream. Chaim called Shimon, who came running over to the factory. Shimon had called a backup crew to come and assist, and by the time we all managed to put everything back together and get the extruders up and running normally once again, it was 2:45 in the morning, and some very unhappy, exhausted people made a move for a bottle of whisky hidden in one of the cupboards.
With glass in hand and with a shouting match about to begin, I was reluctant to drink and even more afraid to move.
“Who thought Eli was capable of running this alone on his first night?” Shimon asked Chaim. Not a bad question. I had wondered the same thing myself.
“Shimon, even a fool could run this place.” Chaim retorted. “No, not just a fool, a fool who was blindfolded!” They’d already decided that the loss in material alone was a few thousand dollars, and now they were deciding, or so it seemed, what they should do to recoup that loss in the way of firing my ass and kicking me off the kibbutz. I was tired, they were tired, and the conversation was becoming tiresome. In for a penny, I thought—
“Okay so I fucked up, right?” I said forcefully, making them all look up. “I’m sure I’m not the first, and I won’t be the last, so what did we all learn from my errors? We learnt that a sixteen-year-old Scottish Jew would rather be in his bed with a sixteen-year-old Israeli virgin than sitting in a plastic bag factory desperate for sex, sleep and then a decent meal.” I looked up, saw I had their full attention, and continued. “Look at all of you, just look. You’re ready to explode, but inside you know you also fucked up by putting only me in charge of something that needed two people not just one. Got it?”
I was shaking now. They were speechless, and we were all starting to smile.
“Go home to bed,” Shimon said, and began to laugh. “Come and see me tomorrow after lunch and we will decide what you can do next. No chickens, no cows, no plastic bags and no night shift. Your volunteer service has ended Eli. You are going to be running this place before you leave, I just feel it.”
A good night’s sleep, no reprimand, and my introduction to night shift employment had gone by the wayside in favor of a position in management! I could scarcely believe it.
“Yo! Jimmy!” I shouted towards Andrew as I headed back toward my dorm. He was rising for his meet and greet with Foghorn Leghorn and Co. Andrew was now well versed in my customary Scottish greeting, which I have used ever since, no matter who I was addressing or in which country.
He looked suspiciously at me. “Why you home so soon?”
“I fucked up. Fell asleep at the machine, caused damage, chaos and a serious issue with people’s impression of my ability to do anything right.”
“Are you in deep shit?”
“Does the Pope pray?”
“Christ, what did I do to deserve you?” He looked toward the heavens.
Nothing could spoil my good mood. “I might have some very good news for you later, so treat me nicely, and I’ll see you when you get home,” I said. “I’m off to bed.” But Andrew wasn’t finished. He shouted out to me as I was turning my back and heading for my room. “Did you know there was an archeological dig on this kibbutz?”
I stopped, turned round and shouted back, “It’ll probably turn up my bones after what I did tonight!” By now I was at my door, and with a casual “fuck you” finger, I went inside, got undressed and fell blissfully asleep. My dreams were solid and colorful, and my mind was relaxed for the first time since I’d arrived. I had no idea why calm had descended upon my being, but I accepted and enjoyed it.
By the time I arrived in Shimon’s office in the afternoon, he looked like he’d gone ten rounds with Muhammad Ali. “Eli, come in and shut the door,” he said. “You are one crazy Scotsman and one crazier Jew. You want my job, but you cannot do any of the other jobs we want you to do.”
“I know, that’s why I need your job. It was meant to be, Shimon, can’t you see? I am useless at anything other than being the boss.”
He laughed. “Okay Eli, have it your way. You can be in charge of the daily workload for all the volunteers.”
“I can?”
“Yes my friend. It’s the only way I can watch over you to make sure there are no more fuckups.”
“You’re the best!” I said it with so much excitement in my voice as I stood up to shake his hand that he waved me to sit back down.
“Today I will show you how you organize, and tomorrow, you choose where everyone works. Give no favors to anyone. Everyone has to do every job, so we rotate them where necessary. Understood?”
“I think so,” was all I could muster. I still couldn’t believe that he was trusting me to arrange the work schedule for all the volunteers. I decided to sit, stay quiet and listen. Once he was finished I would sprint over to the dorms, wake Andrew from his afternoon nap, tell him that his days as a chicken Angel of Death were numbered. He would thank me for the rest of his days—or he would accept that I was a better fuckup than he was. I was sure that I was one step closer to Club Med and one step further away from using my platform shoes as a diving board in order to commit suicide.

In a drawer, in an office, under lock and key, lay a master list. I was given that key. This was the only key that counted (in my humble opinion) and now I had possession of it. I felt drunk with power. Those who I disliked—who’d offered me no compassion when it came to my attempts at my pool crossing, who sniggered when they found out I’d fucked up a whole factory—well, they were in for a shock. No one, other than Andrew, was safe. Even Sally, my “oh so close, but never to be” fuck buddy, well yes, even she was on a slippery slope towards those damn chicken coops. Power!
Okay, that was my dream. In reality, Shimon controlled everything. No harm in pretending, right?
I’d done my best to avoid Sally and any contact with anyone who knew her. It was best for both of us…let’s be honest, it was best for me. Living in close proximity to everyone on a kibbutz was proving hard to do, and with Sally looking after Shimon’s kids every day, it was near on impossible to stay out of each other’s way. Sally of course, had no idea how I felt, and there was no way she was ever going to find out. I now had eyes for a kibbutznik named Rachel, or as they called her “Rachelli.” She was about a year older than me, very petite, with short brown hair and a smile to die for. I’d met her once or twice but had decided she was worth pursuing, especially since Sally was now in the hands of that blonde Israeli God. Shimon had agreed that I should pursue Rachelli; on my first day at my new job, he’d sat me down and told me how to approach her. In his mind, she was perfect for me because she hated chickens, too.
I was beginning to believe that this chicken issue was going to follow me for the rest of my days, but when Shimon and I began working together and I had a chance to share some of my background with him, he changed and liked me even more than he’d done before. No one—except those who lived there—could believe there were any Jews in Scotland, and I think that this was one of the reasons we got along so well. He was dumbfounded that someone of the his faith, from a country with only 6,000 Jews, had made his way onto the same kibbutz and that that someone could relate so deeply to his cause.
I think in talking to me, Shimon realized that beyond his borders were many people who really wanted to be part of what he was actually living. His was not a dream but a reality; the dream was with those who wanted that reality but couldn’t quite find a way to accomplish it. I was fortunate enough to have managed both. Shimon accepted that and accepted me, and our relationship soon blossomed into a bond that remained strong for many years after my visit.
Shimon pulled out the daily worksheet. “There are about 200 volunteers, Eli. Normally I dictate who works where, and we know from experience where most of the workforce has to go to and how many are required for each section. Therefore it becomes quite simple. You follow my direction, and unless there are any special requests—” Shimon looked at me with a wry smile and a hint of disgust “—then we just place them where it suits us and change them around as we think it relevant.”
“Okay, so let me get this right,” I said. “If we have ten of them in the cows for a week, do they then move to the chickens the following week, or do we keep them in the cows?”
“We can do whatever we want, as long as the quota is filled for each position,” he replied.
POWER! This was it. This was the best job on the whole kibbutz and I was going to love it. Each day we posted a work schedule and each night we redid it. We also moved around the kibbutz to check that everyone had showed up for work and that none of these lazy bastard volunteers were in bed shagging or sleeping or just lounging about the pool. This was wonderful! I’d found my calling. My first task was to move Andrew.
“How about fish ponds?” I’d asked him earlier that day.
“Anywhere but chickens,” was his answer. So Andrew, instead of continuing as Elmer Fudd, was about to become Captain Birdseye. He was going to be a very happy boy. I decided to take a walk towards the coops and deliver the good news. I left Shimon’s office and made my way toward the other side of the kibbutz. It wasn’t hard to find the chickens: you stuck your nose in the air and followed the smell of chicken shit. Eventually, you would arrive at a place where feathers were strewn all over a barren strip of ground near where the “death trucks” were parked and you’d know you were near the three large coops—which you could enter or avoid depending on your tolerance for carnage.
I intended to enter when Rachelli came dashing out of the dining area unexpectedly, almost knocking me down. I was in “run” mode and didn’t notice her sweet face coming towards me until it was too late.
“Rachelli, how are you?” I must have looked surprised and embarrassed because the look on her face was exactly the same as mine must have been.
“Eli, where are you rushing to?”
“The chicken coops to tell Andrew he’s being moved to the fish ponds. Want to come?”
“Sure, why not. I have some time.”
Now my world went into slow motion. As we made our way down the road towards those chickens, Rachelli began to tell me all the things that she had done at school that morning and how she was hoping to hop on a bus to Haifa that afternoon to do some shopping. “I wish I could go with you,” I said, knowing that would be impossible due to my heavy work load, but she thought that would be a great idea and told me that Shimon would probably agree if she, not I, asked him nicely. We parted at the chicken coops and she went on her way, telling me she would find me once she’d spoken to Shimon and received the all clear. I wanted to believe that would happen, but this was only my first day on the job, so I was skeptical.
“Yo! Jimmy!” I shouted to Andrew, who was trudging toward one of the
death trucks carrying six struggling chickens—three in each hand, all turned upside down and pecking the heck out of his wrists. “You are now on fish, not chickens,” I said and waited for the smile that would reward my miraculous management skills.
“Fuck, I hate fish,” he said. It wasn’t the applause I was looking for. I was rather deflated and ready to walk away in disgust, but I thought better of it, since Andrew was the only person in that place who I trusted.
“Well, what do you want to do? I asked. “I can get you any place you want.”
“I want the archeological dig.”
“No way. You’re not qualified.”
He glowered. “Come on, you said anywhere!”
I looked at his red face, sweaty armpits and bloodied hands. I couldn’t let a mate suffer at the hands—beaks—of those vermin without putting up a fight. “Okay, I’ll try.” I walked back to the office while dreaming up believable lies that would persuade Shimon that Andrew was a closet archeologist ready and willing to uncover ancient artifacts and leave them in impeckable condition.

The shopping trip to Haifa never materialized, at least not on that day. In fact, I spent the rest of the day looking through the list of volunteers, deciding who was going where, and when, for the next three days. It would soon be the weekend, and, because of the Sabbath, everyone had Friday afternoon and all day Saturday off. I was planning on taking a bus with Andrew to Tel Aviv, just to see it, but right now, my focus was on scheduling workloads and keeping that process fair.
I came across Sally’s name on the roster. Hmm, what to do? I decided to ask Shimon: I should move Sally to another position outside of the kindergarten? His suggestion was that I shut up and concentrate on everyone else. “Leave your vendetta someplace else, Eli,” he said. But I knew that I couldn’t do that. I also knew that doing what I wanted to do would get me fired from my great job and kicked off the kibbutz. So in the end, I decided to visit the archaeological dig taking place on one of the kibbutz’s perimeters. It was time for a break and the dig was a perfect place to explore in the heat of the afternoon. I’d heard that they had dug up some incredible Roman remains already, and I was keen to see the finds firsthand.
When I walked up I saw my man, the aging cowboy I’d seen on day one when we got off the bus. Rabbi John Wayne, as I named him, appeared to be in charge of the dig site. Gun in a belt holster hanging from his hip, with a brush similar to a paintbrush in one hand and a clip board and pen in the other, he regarded me with flinty, gunslinger eyes.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“I came to look.”
“No one just comes to look.”
“Well, I’m not no one.”
“Who are you?”
“You mean you don’t remember me?” I answered as I barked a loud, fake laugh to show my disdain for his lack of recognition.
“You must be from England with an attitude like that,” he laughed.
“Insulting, my good man, very insulting. I am Scottish, and I am really keen to see this dig. I’ve never been to one before.”
“And you’re not about to get into this one, either.”
He rose from his kyphotic posture and stared at me while I stared at the revolver in his holster.
“I’m Eli,” I said, and stuck my hand out. He didn’t acknowledge it. He tightened his belt. “You really need that?” I asked, pointing to his gun.
“Have you ever been shot at?”
“Have you ever been to a Rangers Celtic football match?” I replied.
He placed his clipboard on the closest table, and looked at me a long time before saying, “I have.”
I was amazed. “When?”
“In 1964 I went to Scotland to look at some machinery for this kibbutz. We went to a huge manufacturing plant in Cumbernauld, just outside Glasgow. My friend and my wife came with me and the men with whom we had meetings got us tickets to go to Rangers. There were 90,000 people there, and we had to stand, but I will never forget it. Are you a Rangers fan?”
“I am.”
“Then once you look around my dig you are welcome to come to my home to look at my Rangers scarf and hat. I still have them. My name is Ronnie.” He stuck out his hand to shake mine and just like that, I was in!
Ronnie gave me the grand tour, showing me all the artifacts his crew had managed to find and how they had carefully cataloged everything and stored it in sealed containers to be shipped to the archeological records office in Jerusalem. I was fascinated, and also flabbergasted: some of these items dated back over two thousand years! Ronnie was brilliant. He let me look into the section that they’d just opened, and he explained the entire process of a dig from beginning to end. He made sure that not only did I look but that I also understood what was going on. Ronnie then introduced me to Colin from South Africa, who’d come to the kibbutz especially to participate in this dig. Colin was studying at the University Of Johannesburg, and to him this was paradise. We talked for more than an hour and then Ronnie was called to a meeting where a “major find” was to be authenticated. With a smile like a Cheshire cat, and a spring in my step, I returned to Shimon’s office for an update.
“What you doing for dinner tonight, Eli?” Shimon wanted me to come to his home, but he warned me that Sally would be there, too.
I thought about the inevitable crossing of paths and the best way to handle it. “No problem,” I said, “but can I bring Rachelli if she returns from Haifa?”
“That’s my boy,” said Shimon, “taking my advice and sticking with a nice Jewish Israeli girl! I’m proud of you! Of course you can bring her, and I will tell my wife that you’re coming so she can prepare.” He picked up the phone and called Hannah, his wife, who in turn must have told Sally, because when I arrived, around seven that evening, with Rachelli in tow, Sally was waiting at the front door.
“Have you been avoiding me, Alan?” She always called me by my English name. Jealousy and anger were written all over her face. I could tell. Rachelli could tell. So could Shimon. Hannah, on the other hand, found it amusing, and blurted out, “So this is the Scottish Jew everyone is talking about?” As she said that, Rachelli gripped my hand, squeezed it and gave me a very unexpected kiss on the lips!
Oh, how my fortunes had changed.

“Dinner at Shimon’s” could be the title of a movie. That’s what I was thinking as I stared into the eyes of the girl who I thought might become the first girl I would actually have sex with. She stared back as Hannah served us—you guessed it—chicken! We had a superb evening talking about our common goals, beliefs and hopes for this great country.
Rachelli was a joy to be with. She also brought a great deal to the conversation and we seemed to be getting along just fine. When you live on a kibbutz, there are not too many places you can go on a first date, something that’s severely compounded by the fact that everyone—and I mean everyone—knows where you came from, where you are going, what good and bad things you’ve done and who you have your eye on. This makes it hard to be involved with someone and then move on to another someone, especially if that first relationship ended acrimoniously. Your reputation follows you, as does your ability to avoid confrontation.
I thought this was going to be my first relationship, but I didn’t have to live here forever, so to my mind it was vital that caution direct my every decision. This experience instilled in me a sense of the value of privacy, something that has carried on throughout my life. My business is my business, and no one else’s. Shimon and Hannah explained that living in a communal atmosphere had its good points, none of which I particularly admired. At some point during my two month stay on Hazorea, it occurred to me that living without too many responsibilities on a kibbutz could be very nice, but that thought was soon replaced by a new appreciation for the power of claustrophobia and a new understanding that personal responsibility could breed education, sophistication and desire.
Later in the evening I said, “Shimon, my friend Andrew wants on the archaeological dig. I had a meeting with John Wayne, or Pistol Pete, AKA Ronnie, and he likes me, so, can I ask him to take on Andrew, please?”
Shimon smiled. “Let’s discuss this tomorrow, Eli. Tonight I think your date would rather talk someplace else.”
Rachelli blushed. I blushed. Hannah just laughed. We bid them thank you and goodnight, and we left. But where to go? Rachelli shared a room and I shared a room, so there were no private areas that I knew of. We were stuck. That is, until Rachelli said, “My room is empty tonight, at least for the next hour, so would you like to go there?”
“Fucking right I would!” said the voice inside my head—my other head, which was doing all the talking by this time. Fortunately, that voice stayed in my head. What came out of my mouth was shocking in its gentility: I responded politely, “That would be fantastic.”
The next morning came all too soon, and as I entered the dining hall for breakfast, I saw Andrew chatting to some girl I’d never seen before. I was sure he wouldn’t want to be disturbed; they looked like they were engaged in a deep “I’d like to fuck you” conversation. However, I’ve never been one to shirk a challenge, so I went in with all guns blazing, trying to sabotage my friend as only friends will do.
“Don’t talk to him, he’s a recovering drug addict and a closet homosexual!” I said as I sat down near them. The look on Andrew’s face was exquisite, as though someone had just stolen his brand new bike and he had no chance of catching up to get it back. His new friend, however, looked back at me and all she could muster was “Ma?” which in Hebrew means “What?” My humor had been totally wasted! Now it was Andrew’s turn. His Hebrew was better than mine, and in broken Hebrew/English, he informed his new friend that I was a Scottish pillock!
“Ah,” she replied, “the one with the chickens!”
Jesus H! I couldn’t go anywhere in this place without being ridiculed.
“Listen Jimmy,” I began, “I think I can get you onto the dig. I met Ronnie, our gunslinger friend, you know the one, Wild West Moses?”
“Yep.”
“Well, I spoke to Shimon and he thinks we can make him take you, but you need to show an interest in archeology and not just fish!”
“We could tell him I went to Brighton once with my bucket and shovel, only to find out there was no beach and just rocks.”
“Be serious,” I said. I remained calm but I was becoming frustrated with Andrew for not taking me seriously—and also for not introducing me to this Israeli girl, who I was just realizing had the biggest tits I’d ever seen. I couldn’t imagine that he had looked northward of her chest from the moment they struck up a conversation, not that I would have done any different.
“You want this job or not?” Andrew could see my frustration now and quickly turned the conversation towards his new belle.
“This is Ruthie” (pronounced “rooty” in Israel). She lives here and she and I met last night at the pool. You know, the one you can’t cross?”
No way I was being baited into a discussion of my aquatic cowardice. “Okay, arsehole, quit the humor and let’s discuss the job. Do you want to lie like I did, for advancement, or do you want to be Captain Birdseye for the next six weeks? The choice is yours and you’re lucky you’re getting a choice! Oh, and nice to meet you, Ruthie!” I exhaled, as if tired and annoyed by all this drama.
Andrew knew I was right. “Yes, talk to John Wayne and get back to me.”
I left and headed to the office to confirm with Shimon. “Shimon, I want to talk to Ronnie about getting Andrew on the dig. Do you have any issue with me going to speak to him this morning?”
“What reason would Ronnie have for putting Andrew on his team?”
“Andrew wants to go to Oxford to learn archaeology!” Now I was doing Andrew’s lying for him! Andrew would be lucky if he made it to Oxford Street in London to shop, let alone study archaeology at Oxford University! “This would be a great experience for him.”
“Okay, be it at your own pearl,” Shimon said. “But Ronnie is never easy to talk to.”
“Oh, I think we have some common ground,” I replied as I began walking out of the office with one purpose: to get help my friend secure employment doing something that he knew nothing about. I figured the episode would yield some great comedy material in the years to come. I was right.

Andrew had never held a brush for any other purpose than cleaning his teeth. He didn’t know the first thing about archaeology. To him, artifacts were trinkets bought while on holiday with his parents in Spain. After I’d met with Ronnie and with Shimon, I gave him two words of advice: fake it. Unfortunately, Colin, our new best friend from South Africa, was a smart cookie. He knew immediately that Andrew was a fake, and I suppose Ronnie did, too. They said nothing.
Word had gotten out about what I did for Andrew, and now everyone was lining up to get a better job. All week I’d been inundated with requests from people I’d never even met. I was offered bribes ranging from extra cigarettes (on the kibbutz we were given a supply every week, and since I didn’t smoke I gave mine to Andrew as a trade for him doing my laundry) to cash, to a chance to actually fuck someone’s girlfriend (which, by the way, she agreed to).
I had become the Pimp Daddy for the entire volunteer workforce. In Hebrew, Pimp Daddy is written out like this…

אבא סרסור

…so Shimon (who was clearly loving this) made a sign with those characters and placed at the front of my desk. Boys and girls and young men and women would line up as early as five in the morning, pleading with me to get them out of the cow sheds, the fish ponds, and the chicken coops and into something more suitable. Of course, it was impossible to accommodate everyone—indeed it was nigh on impossible to get anyone into a position they would find satisfactory. But moving Andrew had set a precedent and as I’ve already mentioned, on a kibbutz news travels fast!
It was around dinnertime one evening, about three days after Andrew had begun his education with Colin and Ronnie. He walked into my dorm about a half hour before we were supposedly going on a double date to Tel Aviv for the evening. In those days of immortal youth, I could go all night without sleep and work through the next day before crashing. I remember Hava’s mother, a 89-year-old German Jew with the strangest Israeli/English accent I’d ever heard. She would look at me when I’d been on an all-night bender, frown, then say “Eli, you eez verry verry tired. You need schluf.” In other words, Alan, get the fuck to bed, you look awful!
“So, Jimmy,” said Andrew as he walked into my room, “I have an idea.”
“Uh-oh, time to run,” I replied.
“No, this one’s a beauty. Listen up.” Andrew told me how he and two of the other volunteers on the dig had decided to play a huge prank on Colin and the rest of the crew, who were, of course, very serious about the work they were carrying out. They would plant a “find” in the dig site. The find in question would be a bull penis.
“We’ll wrap it up in a silk sheath and bury it,” he told me. The idea was to transplant the penis in a silk receptacle, as they apparently did in Roman times, and then secretly bury it in a place where, after two or three days, as the dig progressed, they would eventually stumble across the miraculously preserved organ. Andrew was certain that they would believe it was human and in perfect condition.
“What a find, what a story!” he said. He was convinced that his teachers would be all over this find like it was the greatest find since Tutankhamen.
“Are they that stupid?” I asked.
“Worse! Every time we dig something up, they are so wound up and excited, they ‘down tools’, and have a two-hour powwow just in case this item they’ve just found turns out to be the Holy Grail. The three of us just want to take the piss out of them for one brief, shining moment. What do you think?”
I went right to the—ahem—heart of the issue. “Where’s the bull’s penis coming from?”
“Gideon, from Australia, says he has a contact in the cow sheds. They can get hold of one.”
“Fuck, it sounds like a real hoot, and one that will really get their backs up if they find out we did it, but…” I pondered the consequences for the briefest of moments, and then said, “I’m in!”
And so the plan was hatched. We all knew that to contaminate the dig would be a sin of the highest order. But this was Israel, land of forgiveness for Jews, so what was the worst that could happen? I didn’t get ejected from Hazorea after causing thousands in damage in the bag factory, so why would anyone in their right mind throw me out for pulling a stupid prank with a penis? We would find out, but in the meantime, we were off to Tel Aviv, for some dancing, eating and a wee bit of hanky-panky.

Here’s a question I’ll bet you’ve never been asked: have you ever seen a bull’s penis? If you haven’t, don’t ever consider investigating, even for curiosity’s sake. Gideon showed up in the dark of the night with a full-sized bull penis in hand. We rolled around laughing as he displayed it on the floor of our dorm.
“Is it real?” was the question on everyone’s lips. No one could believe that he’d actually managed to pull this off (so to speak) and now we were quite excited about what we were about to do. We were a Gang of Five about to create havoc, not only here on Hazorea, but all over Israel, and perhaps even into countries far away from this ridiculous ruse. It beggared belief that we were actually going to do this.
“What are we wrapping this monster in?” I asked.
“Let’s take pictures!” Andrew said.
“Should we do anything to preserve its shape?” Gideon said.
The five of us just stood and stared, not knowing quite where to begin. Time was on our side. We had a good three hours to plant the penis and run before the kibbutz rose for its workday. But with the discussion and the sheer size of the task, we were stuck to our floor and completely intimidated. Someone had to take control. Foolishly, I did.
“Okay,” I said, “let’s take the penis, wrap it in a sheet, go to the dig and then figure out where to plant it.”
“Who has the flashlight?” Gideon asked.
“I do,” said Andrew.
“Lead on, McDuff,” I said. “Let’s keep it quiet.”
And so, like the five little schoolboys we were, all revved and ready to become big time pranksters, we left the dorm in “stealth mode” and headed to the dig site. What was a ten-minute walk in broad daylight became a 30-minute trek in the middle of the night, carrying a penis and flashlight. We were engaging in our own international covert operations!
All conversation on the way was whispered, though no one actually knew why. After all, there was no one about to listen in. Everyone was asleep except for the poor bastard who’d been conned into replacing me on the plastic bag factory night shift. Our little group of conspirators had wrestled with the question of who would take responsibility should we be caught red-handed—or perhaps more accurately, penis-handed. None of us was brave enough to admit that this misadventure might backfire spectacularly.
Arriving at the dig site, we stopped, prepared our materials, and stepped carefully and quietly into the site. We were now committing archeological blasphemy—contaminating history, as it were. And with the way we were behaving as we stumbled about blindly inside the perimeter, we were doing so at record pace.
“Watch that fucking shovel!” someone whispered.
“Shit,” I cried, “a mosquito just bit me.”
“Shh,” from my left. With our hearts pounding, drenched in sweat, we completed our task, hiding our treasure in a remote corner we knew was only about 48 hours away from being excavated. Finished, we left the dig as quickly as we could and headed back to our dorms. There, we were so high on adrenaline that none of us could get to sleep. Since slumber wasn’t an option, I decided to go on a kibbutz sortie. I knew where Rachelli lived, and I also knew I wasn’t allowed anywhere near her room, but that wasn’t about to stop me. I’d just pulled off the bull penis crime of the century. A covert visit to my girlfriend was nothing.
I tapped on Rachelli’s door, much to the annoyance of her roommate, Becca. Within minutes we were headed to the pool area, where the cool grass made for a perfect place to lie down and make out.
“Why have you never swum across the pool?” she asked as my fingers fumbled with the hooks on her bra strap.
“Just can’t do it,” I replied, at that moment caring far more about a different kind of “breast stroke” than the one I had consistently failed at in the pool.
She pulled away just as I was about to free her glorious tits and said “Come on, let’s do it now!”
“What? No way!” I’d been within millimeters of copping a quick feel—or perhaps more—and now she wanted to swim? Her clothes were off in a flash and she dove in. I looked, stunned, and then I realized, that this was it. This was my chance. Rachelli was naked in the water. I was fully clothed, sitting on the bank of the pool with an erection that could have broken stone. All I had to do was strip, wade in, and boom!
Easier said than done. Water phobia meets teen lust. Irresistible force, meet immovable object.
“Come back out,” I pleaded.
“No.” she was adamant.
“Please?” I sounded like a spoilt brat who’d lost his favorite toy, which technically, I was.
“Eli, come in, and I will look after you.”
I was sure she would, in more ways than one, but fear is fear, and that night, fear won, even though I knew that I was being stupid and irrational. When a naked 17-year-old Israeli girl streaks into a swimming pool and offers to look after you, shouldn’t you throw over all inhibition and join her? Most definitely yes…unless you’re me.
I left the naked girl in the pool and slunk back to my dorm.
After catching three hours of sleep and eating breakfast, I returned to my now regular position in Shimon’s office.
“Eli, you look tired,” he said. “Exhausted in fact. Do you have something you want to tell me?”
Caught completely off guard, the first thing that entered my head was: We’ve been caught!
“Uh, no…” I was stuttering, stammering and pretty darned scared, and then I realized from the smile on Shimon’s face that he was presuming that I’d been up fucking Rachelli all night. “Oh, no it’s my business, not yours.” I blurted out.
Shimon was having none of it. “Come on, tell me all the details.”
“Let’s move on, Shimon. I was up all night because I couldn’t swim across that stupid pool.”
“You need encouragement,” he said. Little did he know that I’d had plenty of encouragement and still couldn’t do it.
I was about to tell him that when the door burst open and a little Asian guy about 19 years old ran in, sweating profusely and shouting in Hebrew.
“We need you at the dig, NOW!!!”
As Shimon got up off his seat, I shit my pants, thinking they’d found us out already! But how was that possible? We’d been so careful! We’d planted the penis a long way from where the team was excavating, or so Andrew had told us.
“Come with me, Eli,” Shimon ordered. And so I was off, back to where I’d been only hours before, but this time, with a conscience so guilty you could have hung me from that first banana tree without a confession and still have been right to do so. This, I thought, was going to be a very interesting start to the day.

One thing I’ve never tolerated, even as a child, is drama. If you have an issue, find a solution. If you can’t find a solution, then you’re not trying hard enough. While our little Asian friend marched us towards the dig, Shimon kept asking him, “What’s the problem?” Every time he did, the young man ignored him completely. Within five minutes we’d arrived. While we stood on the perimeter waiting for someone (my own preference was someone other than Ronnie or Colin), to let us know what this huge emergency was, I noticed Andrew standing nearby making some kind of cutting movement with his hand across his throat.
“Oh shit,” I thought. “We’re fucked.” Just as my mind went into overdrive, Ronnie came running through a cloud of dust that seemed to have formed as a brief gust of wind passed over the excavation. He looked like the second coming of Jesus, or one of the ten biblical plagues, depending on how vivid your imagination is. He and Shimon proceeded to have what appeared to be a very frank and animated discussion in rapid-fire Hebrew.
“Shimon, what’s going on?”
He turned to me, his eyes animated with a look I’d come to recognize from Colin and the other archaeologists. “We believe that the team has uncovered something very special today. This could be momentous!”
Without missing a beat and with my heart going boom-boom-boom, and with Andrew in the near distance trying his best not to laugh, I said, “Exciting, what did you find?”
“Come Eli, come,” was all he could say.
Ronnie led the way and we all followed, carefully tip-toeing through the dirt and into that very same corner where our crazy, tight-lipped, Gang of Five had surreptitiously planted that penis at one o’clock that very morning. In the corner were a group of three archeologists—one from Jerusalem, the other two from France. They were standing in silence, tools at the ready, but motionless.
Ronnie spoke. “We began to excavate this, the northwest corner of the dig yesterday, and when we arrived about an hour ago, Christophe,” Ronnie pointed to one of the archeologists as if he stood accused of something terrible, “thought the site had changed slightly from yesterday.”
Fucking right it had, I thought while trying hard not to smirk while looking as serious as I’d ever done at any time in my life.
“We decided to look closely at the way the earth had moved,” said Ronnie, “and we noticed what we thought was a silk sheath. We stopped, took a deep breath and slowly brushed aside the dirt, uncovering something quite spectacular.”
It was as if someone was about to reveal the punch line at a comedy show. The tension was unbearable. These guys were so engrossed in their “find” that they couldn’t see that their own seriousness had blinded them to what should have been an obvious fraud. I wished for a camera at that moment, because this kibbutz was about to get hit by the biggest, baddest April fool of them all. Then things got better.
“We called the experts in Jerusalem at the archives office,” Ronnie continued, “and we were told not to touch another thing. They are sending Dan Herzioni, the best man in this field, to come here right now to assist.”
Holy shit, I thought. By now Andrew had vanished into the haze on the other side of the dig site.
Shimon spoke. “Clear the dig, Ronnie. This could be very special. No point in having anyone do anything they shouldn’t, right? Also, let me know when Dan arrives and we can call everyone back to watch when he gives us his esteemed opinion.”
I wanted to puke. I also wanted to tell everyone that all this was a prank, but everything, inside me shouted “Shut it, Alan!” This bugger Dan was coming three hours from Jerusalem to tell us that we were a laughingstock and fraud! As Ronnie called the dig to a halt, I went to find Andrew and Gideon. We needed to make a choice, and I wasn’t going to be the one to do this alone.
By now, Andrew was well on his way to a place that was as far from the dig as possible. News was spreading fast, as it does on in a place with only 800 residents, and everything else on the kibbutz was grinding to a halt as every man, woman and child made their way to the edge of the excavation site to see what all the madness was about. Everyone wanted to see what the team had found. What I found really intriguing was that no one on the kibbutz had ever cared about that dig since I’d been there, and now they were all converging like Jesus had just been resurrected!
Clearly someone had to confess. We couldn’t just leave these people in limbo and let poor Dan ruin not only his day but everyone else’s day with his certain discovery of fraud.
Could we?

You might think it’s easy for an expert in a field to determine whether something is real or fake. Well, it’s not. Experts move at a brisk pace and with much care in order to accomplish their task in the most efficient and credible manner possible. In this case, the expert, Dan Herzioni from Jerusalem, a foremost authority on ancient relics, arrived just after lunch, accompanied by his driver, his assistant and a woman who looked like his mother. After a brief discussion in Shimon’s office, none of which I was privy to, the team made its way towards the dig. That was the last I saw of them until they emerged some five hours later.
Meanwhile, Andrew and I were deep in discussion with our co-conspirators about what exactly we should do, if anything. We were fighting amongst ourselves, not sure which way to turn. I could tell from everyone’s facial expressions that we all thought we were fucked. I kept saying that we would all be held responsible and probably taken to the police for our little transgression. No one else agreed. They all thought that if we came clean, everyone else would see the funny side of this prank. “Nonsense,” I said. “Do you think they’re stupid? Do you believe they will just let it all go in the interest of hilarity?”
It was like truth or dare; in the end, we opted for dare. There was no way anyone could pin this prank on any of us; so as long as we all kept our mouths shut no one would ever find out the truth. I lost out to a majority decision and we all parted ways, tight-lipped and suspicious.
My mood brightened when Rachelli came into lunch with a huge smile spread across her face. I thought I knew what she was going to say, but I resolved to act surprised.
“I have decided you will swim across the pool today!”
Taken completely off guard, I blurted out, “You going to get naked in daylight this time?” At this, half the kitchen staff and dining room stopped talking and stared at us. Rachelli went beetroot red, and I just wanted to hide under the nearest table.
Rachelli recovered. “I have a plan,” she said, leaning into me. “Sorry, we, as in all of my class, have a plan,” she whispered as her hair brushed across my ear lobe and my penis became instantly hard. Suddenly, my thoughts of impending doom at the dig vanished. “Come with me and you’ll be amazed,” she finished.
Well, why not? At least when Dan from Jerusalem revealed the fraud, I could jump into the water and inhale until it was all over.
We ate vegetables and fruit with hummus and then she grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the dining area towards the pool. I only hoped this plan would work out better than our plan for astonishing the world with our incredible archaeological-bovine-genital fabrication!
A thick grove of trees surrounded the pool, so before you actually reached the water’s edge you couldn’t tell if there were people swimming, lying in the sun or doing anything they shouldn’t. It was a perfect snogging spot for couples who sought privacy—one I’d tried to take advantage of several times already, always without success. Today, as we approached the water, I could see was the whole of Rachelli’s school class. They had formed a kind of honor guard at the edge of the water in anticipation of my arrival. I knew all of them, some not well, some more than others, but I had this strange foreboding of what was about to happen.
“Alan, today is your day!” Rachelli stripped off her clothing to reveal her bikini. My heart sank as I realized I was about to be coaxed into the water. Shit, what if I drown? But my girl wasn’t about to let that happen.
Without warning, and in synchronized perfection, her classmates descended into the water and formed two parallel lines stretching from one side of the pool to the other, each student about three feet from the next. They made a channel that I could swim through, keenly guarded by Hazorea’s finest. Clearly, I had no choice.
Rachelli approached me. “Alan,” she said softly, “get in, don’t be scared, and if anything happens, we are here for you. You can’t drown, you can’t go under, but you can and you will make it to the other side.” Clearly, in the face of this kind of planning, there was no way out. With my heart in overdrive, I took off my work shorts, which were on top of my running shorts, which substituted for a bathing suit, and tiptoed into the water, mouth dry, heart thudding.
“Come on, you can do this” said one of the other kids. And with that, a chant began, all of them in a synchronized beat. “Eli! Eli! Eli!” This noise caught the attention of many others: as I looked around with one foot in the water and one on the pool’s edge, I saw people arriving from out of nowhere. It seemed like the whole kibbutz was watching, and it was up to me perform and prove that once and for all, I would no longer be a laughingstock.
I went for it. I turned around, splashing everyone who was near me as my whole body submerged and my arms and legs worked in tandem, pushing me, with every stroke, ever closer to the other side. As I concentrated on my momentum, I was unaware that my “honor guard” had suddenly vanished, everyone retreating to the opposite end of the pool. It took perhaps 15 or 20 seconds and I was there, safe and clinging to concrete.
Before I had a chance to even appreciate what I’d done, there came a tumultuous round of applause and cheering from all around the pool. I felt a bit like a stupid little boy accepting cheers for doing something that five-year-olds did every summer, but I was also overcome with gratitude for all the help, coaching and coaxing Rachelli’s team had offered.
Now it was time to show off for my girl. I got up, turned around and swam back to the other side! Then I did it again and again and again, without fear. I probably crossed that pool 25 times. Rachelli was looking down at me like a proud partner, savoring this special moment. The whole class presented me with a bar of chocolate along with this handwritten note of congratulations, which I still have. Nothing could have ruined that moment…nothing except the thought of Dan, the expert, who by now was probably in the midst of telling the kibbutz if they had the find of the century or were the victims of a huge hoax.

Later, Dan announced the results of his investigation in the dining room. Mad panic cannot even describe the feeling in my stomach and, I’m sure, those of my co-conspirators. But to our complete and utter shock, Dan believed the find to be real and true!
No fucking way said the look on the faces of the Gang of Five as we sat with our mouths wide open, our disbelief written overcoming our guilt. It was impossibly surreal.
“How the fuck did he come to that conclusion?” whispered Andrew.
“Fuck knows,” was my response. A massive sigh of relief went off inside my stomach. Whatever had happened before was in the past, and the kibbutz, thanks to Dan from Jerusalem, began contemplating the prospect of fame even before the last rock had been cleared, the last antiquity dusted and the last shovel and brush put away. Rachelli hugged me while Shimon beamed from the elevated platform on which he now stood with his new friends from the archeological office in Jerusalem. Ronnie was ecstatic, and I could see in his eyes the he was close to pulling out his pistol and firing a few shots in celebration.
I was still dumbfounded that this so-called expert could have reached such a conclusion. As he began to speak again to about 400 of the residents, I slipped away toward my dorm. My brain was buzzing and my body limp with a foreboding that all was not what it seemed.
My foreboding was justified. About an hour after Dan made his momentous speech, a rumor began spreading like wildfire: the supposed penis of a Roman soldier, this miraculous find of the century, had all been a prank by some of the volunteers! “Who opened their mouth?” I wondered. How was it possible to go from elation to desperation within one hour, even after the top expert in the country had confirmed this as the “find of the year?”
Grabbing Andrew by his shirt sleeve as he tried to get out of Dodge for the evening, I shouted, “You’re going nowhere without me pal. In as a team, out as a team. Who crapped his pants and shopped us?” I asked.
“Don’t know, but I’m going to Tel Aviv tonight. I’m going to get a room at the YMCA and come back in two days when all this has died down. You coming?”
“Shit, I don’t know. I have no money.”
“Ask Rachelli, and let’s get out of here now.”
“No, I can’t do that. We need to stay and face the consequences. Who do you believe said something?”
“I already told you, I don’t know and I don’t care. I have to leave.”
Andrew vanished and I was left standing alone. It was puzzling. How could anyone in their right mind—let alone an archaeology expert—have deduced that penis to have come from a Roman warrior? It was pathetic. It was time for me to put things right. But how?
As night fell and we once again descended on the dining hall for dinner, my kibbutz mother, Hava, had decided I should eat at her home and not with everyone else. With seven children, she had become quite a proficient cook, and her home had become one of my preferred places to dine. Her kosher beef stew was excellent and it was that stew that she’d chosen to cook on this particular evening. As I walked in, the aroma of beef and vegetables was already filling the hallway of her modest home.
Hava was always pleased to see me, and I think she’d become quite attached to my politeness and quirky mannerisms. She couldn’t understand why anyone from a so-called “cold” climate would subject his body to a five -mile run in the heat of the day. She thought I was nuts, as did the rest of her family. She had also made it clear that she was so proud of the fact that I’d come to help on Hazorea and that it gave not only her but the rest of the kibbutz a feeling that they were not alone. Remember that Israel was (and still is) surrounded by governments who wanted to annihilate it, and so support from me and the rest of the volunteer force around the country was welcomed and much appreciated.
Once the food was ready, we sat down, just the two of us, for dinner. “Eli,” she began, “this artifact that they found on the dig, would you happen to know anything about it?”
So that was why she wanted to have me over for dinner. But in her eyes I glimpsed traces of humor and of sarcasm, and I knew immediately that she knew. “Well…”
She put her finger to her mouth. She knew she’d had me from the first word, and now all I could do was sit back and listen.
“For the last 24 hours, Eli, this whole place has had an air of excitement about it that I can rarely ever remember in the past, and I’ve been here for many years,” she said. “I have never seen so many people running around with such a sense of purpose. So whatever or whoever did this has created a completely different atmosphere for us all. Nothing much happens here, and each day blends into another, with the only change being the temperature from the sun. It’s not that we are bored, but we need something to pick us up now and then, and this has been it. How did you do it?”
“How did you know I did?”
“Eli, I have grown to know you over the past month, and it didn’t take much to put two and two together. Was it your idea?”
“Not technically.”
“Well, in any event, you should not say anything to anyone. Let the experts try and figure it out on their own.”
I was still dumbfounded as to how she knew, but as each mouthful of her stew hit my stomach, I was becoming less concerned about any retribution that might take place once everyone deduced that I had been part of the prank. Hava sat—smiling, eating, and enjoying what had been a wonderful day for her and her friends. They had all been thrown suddenly into the limelight, and even if it was a false alarm it provided an important lesson: life can change in a fraction of a second and all is never what it seems to be.

Within days, the rumor became confirmed fact: the “find of the century” had merely been the hoax of the summer. With the secret out of the bag and Dan from Jerusalem eating humble pie, Hazorea went back to normal. It had taken a few days for the place to calm down but it was evident that life would go on, the dig would be finished and construction would be completed on a new school for the kids that would eventually cover the dig site.
Our penis prank had been a success if you were looking for a laugh, but for Dan it had been one of the most dramatic failures of his career. His reputation was shot to pieces; the Jerusalem Post pummeled him for days on end, leading to his resignation and retirement. “Oh dear,” muttered Gideon one afternoon while we are all at the pool, “Dan just never took the bull by the horns!” As we laughed, we still couldn’t comprehend how Dan, a professional antiquities expert, had confused a bull’s dick for that of a Roman soldier. It would always remain a mystery.
However, our days at Hazorea were coming to an end. Our hard work killing chickens, screwing up plastic extruders and committing archaeological fraud was to be rewarded with a week’s tour around Israel. The whole group would reassemble and we would travel to Jerusalem, Haifa, the Dead Sea and Masada. All the best sights and all very accessible. Israel is such a small, compact country that you are never more than three hour’s drive from anywhere.
Andrew and I were in the midst of saying goodbye to our respective girlfriends—goodbyes that would last several days and nights—but our new focus was on what lay ahead in the “land of milk and honey” and what we would discover whilst being led out of bondage by our own personal Moses.
Goodbyes are never easy, no matter who you’re saying them to. These were probably the hardest I’d ever had to make. It was seven on a Wednesday morning, and there was a line of well wishers waiting with us at the front gate of the kibbutz. Rachelli and I had spent our last night together, filled with questions (“You’ll be back next year, won’t you?”) and promises (“Of course I’ll write”). But of course, time passes, other things in life take priority, and those promises become empty. But at 16 you’re unaware of that so you play the “I’m going to keep in touch” game well into that final kiss.
Hava and the rest of her family made me swear that I would come back. I would, only I didn’t know it on that particular day. She was so sincere in her appreciation of our efforts to come and assist on the kibbutz, so genuine with her love and respect for all we had done that I knew then and there that I would miss them all terribly. Such a great family!
Shimon gave me a bear hug and told me that I was the best bullshitter he’d ever met. A true compliment from a true gentleman. We laughed and joked about the six weeks I’d spent with him, and he even brought a chicken to the front gate to see me off. Ronnie was still pissed about our little prank, but he showed up, gun in holster, and he was actually sad to see us go. All in all, we’d been treated like kings and lived like kibbutzniks, and were all the better for having done so. I’d lost so much weight that I was as skinny as I’d ever be in my life, with an incredible “farmers tan” that would amaze back in the cold gray climate of Scotland.
It was sad to leave, but it was indeed time to go. The bus arrived, having already picked up some of our group at a kibbutz close by, and we boarded to the sounds of sadness—but also of gratitude. As I looked back from my front window seat, those two dusty but intact platform shoes hanging from my shoulder, I felt the sadness from our group as we drove away from the kibbutz. These were our people. We were related, if not directly, then through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. My own feeling was that I’d come, I’d seen and I certainly wanted to see more. I knew I’d be back, even if I didn’t know when. I also knew that no matter what happened anywhere else on the planet, this country was my birthright. At that time, I didn’t know how many other people, races, and religions felt the same way. When I discovered that, it would certainly be an eye opener.
We arrived in Haifa that evening and were entertained by Israeli dancers and musicians. For all the horny males in our company, the heat was on again. The dice were about to be thrown in the direction of who fancied who. There was no room for error: we had one week in close proximity of one another, and one week only. You made a move, and if successful, you had a week of pure bliss and much sex. One false move and you were an outcast with the ladies.
I decided not to move in any direction; so did Andrew. Many decided the opposite, and relationships sprang up at every turn. There were twosomes and threesomes and probably more-somes going on every night in every hotel we had the pleasure of occupying. From Haifa to the Golan and then on to Galilee and south—from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, Masada, and back to Tel Aviv, we saw it all and we saw it together. There were many stories to tell, and much to write home about, but the one thing I can never forget is that we all felt we belonged. This had been no Club Med. This had been tough, relentless, educational, and the greatest experience any 16-year-old boy could have asked for.
Back on board that 747, this time sitting next to Andrew, we took off from Ben Gurion Airport as men, not boys, propelled by an everlasting belief that fate had brought us here and that life was going to take us to our next destination. Andrew and I remain friends to this day, and we worked together for many years in the same company. We went back to Israel the following year to do it all again, but that turned out to be a bit of a letdown. We both still visit regularly, although never as kibbutzniks. Today, it’s five-star hotels for us. But that summer of 1975 was one to remember, one that changed me for the better. Hazorea remains part of my heart and blood—and yes, it’s still there, still part of the great state of Israel.

Epilogue

A year can be a long time when you’re 16. Andrew and I went our separate ways when we arrived back in London. I disappeared into Heathrow Terminal One to catch my flight to Glasgow, and he was met by his parents at the exit for Terminal Three. He believed he would never set eyes on me again (as I’m sure he would admit if you asked him today). Of course, he would be proven wrong. With a quick handshake and a promise to keep in touch, we bid farewell to one another and that is where my kibbutz experience seemed to end. However, things were about to get interesting.
The morning we’d left the kibbutz, Rachelli had asked if she could come and visit me in Scotland. She’d also promised to write to me every week. She was very nice, but after six weeks of feeling trapped on Hazorea it was a blessing to be loose and fancy free once again. The sad look on her face when we said goodbye has haunted me for more 40 years, but underneath I really believed that she had a new beau lined up and was waiting for me to vanish and clear the path. I was on my way to a different country, and surely what had happened over the summer was unimportant in the grand scheme of her life. Her memory lingered, though, as my plane landed at Glasgow airport on the sunniest and warmest day I could remember.
I stood outside in my slimmer, more athletic body, my jeans, half-buttoned cheesecloth shirt (remember those?) and my suntan. I had changed, and I had the experience to prove it. As my grandfather approached in his brown Ford Escort, he was surprised at how different I looked; he actually drove past me twice before stopping and realizing that it actually me! He was delighted to see me and on the way home he grilled me for all the details of my eight weeks away from Scotland. (He’d never been to Israel and wanted to go, but unfortunately he never made it.) He dropped me off at my house on Lonsdale Ave., where my sisters waited with bated breath alongside my mother, desperate to interrogate me about where I’d been and who I’d been with!
With a week left before school started, I decided to spend my time composing letters to the people I wanted to stay in touch with from Israel and to re-acquaint myself with my friends in Glasgow. After meeting Howard and Charles and being told once again that I’d “changed” (perhaps, to them, not for the better), I sat and put pen to paper. I wrote to Andrew, giving him all my home details and asking him if I could come to London to spend a weekend with him sometime soon. I’d been bitten by the travel bug, and as I’d also had the experience of traveling alone, I had no more fear about wandering the world on my own—or about much else, as a matter of fact.
My door bell rang. It was Charles, June and Suzanne, three friends who’d come to see how I was and what I’d been up to. The Jewish community in Glasgow was very small, and everyone knew what everyone else was doing. I had been one of the first to venture to Israel and curiosity was rampant amongst my friends. We talked for hours about my experiences and my desires for the future, and while this was happening I noticed that June and Suzanne were looking at me with an “I’d like to go out with you” stare that I’d not seen before. This was something I’d not really experienced, and as the afternoon wore on (including their invitation to a dance the following next weekend) I was sure that my new life in Glasgow, post-Hazorea, would be completely different from the one I’d known.
Letters took about a week to arrive by first class GPO (General Post Office), but six weeks after I’d mailed my note to Andrew, the bastard hadn’t bothered to reply. Time for a phone call.
“Fucker, how are you?”
“Well—“ he began, and before he’d had a chance to get going I was on him like a dog in heat.
“Listen, if you don’t want to stay in touch, just say so, I won’t be offended, but I want to come to London, so, if you don’t mind, I’d like to come at Christmas and stay with you. Okay?”
Andrew had no choice but to accept, because the new and improved Alan wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
I was bitterly disappointed that there had been no replies from any letters I’d sent to Rachelli, Shimon or Hava. My school year had begun, as had my relationship with June, so everything was going nicely and without complaint. Andrew agreed to let me come to London for Christmas—and I learned that he, too, had been disappointed with the lack of response from his young lady on Hazorea. We both agreed that distance meant nothing to love, our relationships had been about convenience, not love.
My trip to London was monumental. Andrew got drunk in Wimbledon the very first night we went out. We’d gone to a pub called The Swan, and as I didn’t drink, I became the designated puke cleaner-upper on the train coming back to Worcester Park, where Andrew lived. Andrew’s mother went ape, telling him that he’d treated me shabbily, and his dad Michael agreed. The next day we all went for a great lunch and a walk in Richmond park, and it was during that walk that Michael, Andrew’s dad, blurted out “You should go back to Israel next summer, lads.” I’ve no recollection of why he said that (it may have been related to Andrew’s behavior the previous night), but his words had the desired effect. The planning began.
Andrew came to Scotland for New Year’s and over the course of the next few months we put together a plan that would take us both back to the Promised Land, but this time to a different kibbutz with another friend of mine, John McVey. John was a good guy who’d heard all about our exploits from the previous summer and decided he wanted in. Andrew didn’t mind and neither did I, but it turned out to be a huge mistake!
With cash saved from walking the streets selling plastic bags, working on the printing machine at my father’s office and doing other odd jobs, we were set. Summer came, flights were booked and off we went. This time, my platform shoes were safely tucked away in a drawer. Jeans, open sandals and cheesecloth were the order of the day. We were on our way to a kibbutz called Ein Carmel (pronounced “einacarmel”) and boy, were we excited. I was a year older and a year wiser and I planned to shag my way from dorm to dorm until my penis was blue.
But when we arrived, oh how things changed.
In my life, I’ve learnt that the first time is very often the best. In this case, it certainly was. Ein Carmel was no Hazorea. We hated it. We spent our days picking pears, olives and bananas, and the people on the kibbutz were rude and unfriendly. Andrew and I fell out with John within two days of getting there and longed to go back to Hazorea, if only to see the friendly faces we’d missed for the past year. With some time to spare, we made haste for Hazorea, hoping to spend a weekend where we believed paradise lay.
We arrived unannounced. It was a Friday afternoon and everyone was getting ready to celebrate the Sabbath, but we knew our way around and entered Hazorea certain that someone would welcome us with open arms. Fortunately, they did! Hava was the first smiling face I saw as I sauntered up towards the dining room. I will never forget the look on her face. She opened her arms to offer me a huge hug, and shouted out at the top of her lungs and with a tear running from her left eye, “Eli, you came back!” As we ate dinner that evening she explained that it was a huge deal for them if volunteers came back. It meant that they’d done what they were supposed to do: made us feel welcome and showed us that we belonged here. And we did.
Hava called everyone to come round to her place. We sat up all night talking about the previous year. The dig had finally finished and construction of the school had commenced. Ronnie, who’d always been involved with the dig, had packed up everything they’d uncovered and shipped it off to Jerusalem, where an exhibition displaying the artifacts had been in progress for months. They’d uncovered some incredible items (excluding the penis we’d planted) but Hava told us that everyone still spoke of that unbelievable find! We had become part of Hazorea folklore!
She also told me that Rachelli had fallen in love with a man from another kibbutz and moved away. Even though I’d never heard from her in the year since we parted, my heart gave a small pang of regret when I heard the news. But not being one for regrets—not even then—I pressed on and asked Hava if Andrew and I could come back to Hazorea to work for the rest of our time in Israel. She was beside herself with excitement at the thought of us coming back, but, just as I mentioned before, the first time is sometimes the best. After giving it second thoughts and spending the weekend at the poolside reminiscing, Andrew and I left, determined to stick it out on Ein Carmel, even if it meant suffering for the next six weeks.
We both agreed that once you were out you were out. This trip called for new challenges and new experiences, all of which we would find, but that’s a story for another time.
Even today, in 2013, I can vividly recall the details of my time in Hazorea. It left an indelible mark on my soul and my heart. It’s something that can never be repeated but definitely something that I cherish. Two years later, I found out that Rachelli got married and then went into the army, as all Israelis must do. Ronnie passed away about three years after our trip to Hazorea. I lost touch with Hava in the mid 1980s, but I am sure she’s no longer with us. She was old back then, and odds are that she’s now with God.
Andrew and I have remained best mates for 35 years, traveling together, working together and talking to one another at least once a week even though I left the UK to live in California 20 years ago. Our bond was made in Israel and can never be broken. His family and mine became very close, and like brothers, we have prospered. We have revisited Israel more than 50 times, but have never gone back to Hazorea. Hazorea is still there and always will be, along with all our memories of 1975, and that’s where they belong.
Shalom!