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From the symbol of the ethnic rift, the "millionaires' pool" has become a field of thorns.
Now the old dream is about to come true
Forty years ago, the pool in Menara represented the "millionaire kibbutzniks" of the labor movement, as Begin called them.
A rift opened up among the residents of the area, the security situation left the next generation, and the attraction closed in the absence of demand.
This week the generation of founders and young families celebrated together its reopening
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Menara
Swimming Pool
Eli Ashkenazi
Saturday, 03 July 2021, 16:30
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Forty years ago, a small pool in a kibbutz clinging to the land on Israel's border with Lebanon became an image that represented the rift between the labor movement, which began to decline from the political stage, and the "second Israel" represented by the Likud, which won power four years earlier.
A member of Menara who was sitting in the pool water, while being interviewed for an article about the stormy Knesset elections, was called by Menachem Begin, the prime minister, "a haughty kibbutznik who speaks from the pools of the swimming pool like an American millionaire."
The facts about the course of life of that kibbutznik and the security distress from which the kibbutz suffered were not relevant at that moment. The image of the "millionaire kibbutzniks" clung to Menara and the entire kibbutz movement, as a symbol of detachment from Israeli society. The country was in turmoil and even after it was forgotten, the image stuck and remained present in the Israeli consciousness.
Over the years, the same pool in Kibbutz Menara was closed and neglected, many members left the community where they were born and raised and the place struggled for its continued existence.
This week the pool was reopened in a move that symbolizes the success of the absorption and growth process that Menara residents have led in recent years.
"On Saturday, when the pool opened, I was really excited," Moran Corland of Menara said.
"Opening the pool is a statement that we are here and that there is continuity to the menorah."
The storm forgot, the image stuck in the kibbutz.
The Menara Pool (Photo: Walla !, Menara Archive)
On June 30, 1981, elections were held for the Tenth Knesset.
They are considered the most violent elections held in all the years of the State of Israel.
Four years earlier, the political upheaval took place when the Likud succeeded in removing from power the system on whose political incarnations he had led the country since its inception, for 29 years.
In those elections a boiling lava erupted that bubbled in the scorching heat that created ethnic and social tensions.
The party and Peres at the head of the party were presented as arrogant Ashkenazis.
Peres suffered curses and tomato barrages at several election rallies he held.
The election campaign opened the gap between Kiryat Shmona and the kibbutzim.
Begin (Photo: AP)
Three days before the public went to the polls, entertainer Dudu Topaz poured oil on the hostile fire. In his remarks, which are referred to as the "Chachachim speech," he told the large crowd in Kings of Israel Square: "It is a pleasure to see this crowd, and a pleasure to see that there are no Chachachim here. The Chachachim are in Zeev Fortress. "They go to the army at all. This is where the soldiers and commanders of the combat units are," Topaz called.
A day later, at a Likud mass rally in the same square, Begin took the stage, ready to land the ball picked up by Topaz: he first called the red flags waved at the left-wing rally "communism flags," waved by "those brought here in kibbutz trucks." Then he turned to Topaz: "Last night, in this square stood a young actor, what is his name? Dudu? Dudu, To-Paz, Dudu Topaz, here he said to the hundred thousand people in the line-up: ' "Here are the soldiers and the commanders of the combat units."Begin roared and responded with tremendous contempt aimed at the lineup.
"Until this morning I had not heard the word chachachim and did not know its meaning. But when he, what was his name, du-do to-paz, said the nonsense the whole crowd that stood here last night, cheered," Begin raised his voice and tens of thousands whistled contempt.
"Tell his uncle Topaz who he meant. The members of our Eastern community were also heroic fighters in the underground. Moshe Barzani was a Sephardi from Iraq. Ashkenazi, Iraqi, Jews, fighters, brothers," he read aloud.
Northern storm
The same turbulent election campaign also set fire to Kiryat Shmona and its neighboring kibbutzim. A day before the vote, an illustration was published in a local newspaper in Kiryat Shmona in which the "Kibbutz Mafia" was depicted as a flock of predators attacking the city. "Quiet, here they come. They are stepping on you, Kiryat Shmona," it was written.
Begin and the Likud won the election and formed a government, but the fumes of hatred did not dissipate long after.
Three months have passed since the election, when on the eve of Rosh Hashanah 5752 the Prime Minister was asked in an interview with Kol Yisrael on the eve of the holiday whether he had incited members of the Mizrahi community in the election, and replied that he was not the one who spoke "condescendingly about two cultures. I said about people who are barely shin-gimels? Have you not seen on television this man in Kibbutz Menara sitting in the swimming pool like some American millionaire and talking with a great deal of contempt about the residents of a nearby development town? Did I sit in the same swimming pool? I have no such arrangement at all. "
Begin directed a television report that dealt with the same rift that opened up between the kibbutzim and Kiryat Shmona.
The reporter then arrived at Kibbutz Menara and interviewed a kibbutz member at the swimming pool.
The pool was built only seven years earlier, about thirty years after the kibbutz came to the ground.
Menara was established in 1943 and suffered for years from loneliness and economic and security difficulties.
More on Walla!
Revolution 81: The moment when the Israeli melting pot disintegrated
To the full article
Loneliness and economic and security difficulties.
Members of the kibbutz in the pool (Photo: Walla !, Menara Archive)
On the same day, photos were taken of Israeli television by his friend Benjamin Banai, 57, who was born in Germany.
He worked in the metal factory in the locality and edited the kibbutz newsletter.
To the reporter's question, he spoke about his pain in the face of the animosity between the kibbutzim and Kiryat Shmona, and explained that despite the kibbutzim's help provided to the city, there was a degree of guardianship and paternalism that neither side served.
"Kiryat Shmona must live and develop without the intervention of the kibbutzim," he stressed, rejecting the reporter's assumption that two peoples live in Israel, but believes that there are two cultures here.
"He saw a kibbutz member being interviewed while immersing himself in a swimming pool, and he drew all the wrong conclusions from this," an editorial in the Maariv newspaper read.
"If no young friends are added, we'll be in trouble."
Menara Pool (Photo: Walla !, Menara Archive)
But the words have already been said and Kibbutz Menara was chosen by Begin to be the symbol of the kibbutz movement that the prime minister wanted to present as arrogant and detached from its surroundings. Despite the image the reality in Menara was not simple; Along with constant security tensions that included Katyusha firing and attempted infiltration, the kibbutz fought over its sons and daughters who did not return home after the army.
Among the founders of the settlement was Rachel Rabin, the sister of Yitzhak Rabin. At the end of his life, his father, Nehemiah Rabin, came to live there. After his death, his friends sought to commemorate his memory and donated money for the construction of a 25-meter-long swimming pool.
"We, the veterans, are getting older, and if young friends are not added to us, we will be in trouble," Rachel Rabin-Yaakov told a reporter who came to Menara in early 1989.
"We decided not to be interviewed any more immediately after security incidents, because the publicity is causing us trouble and deterring new immigrants. They hear on the news what happened, and do not even want to visit here," she said.
She told of families leaving "and the pain is great" and of "our boys coming home for a compulsory year after the military, and then going out for two years to make money to travel the world, to look for themselves. Most of them do not find their way back. We have new people, and this struggle will never end. "
The weeds and thorns took over.
Menara Pool (Photo: Walla !, Menara Archive)
The situation reached the point where about ten years ago the kibbutz, which at its peak numbered 500 members and children, had only 120 residents left, of whom about seventy were members, most of them adults.
The children's homes were emptied.
The pool was also closed about ten years ago.
"It was a heartache," Corland said.
She said, "It felt like the beginning of the end. There was a demographic hole here and the veterans did not see how to get out of this vortex."
At that time, she says, "the kibbutz was facing a decision - either they dismantle what was and become a moshav or they mobilize forces and make a change."
Corland, 31, and today in charge of the kibbutz's absorption department, returned to Menara after a few years.
She said, "Everyone who could help enlisted. The veterans enlisted for the mission and understood that the absorption of new families would also be financed out of their own pockets. For example, establishing an education system for families who would come with children."
Renewed.
The pool after the opening (Photo: Walla !, official website)
Meanwhile, a new neighborhood has been built, 19 new families have been absorbed, including freelancers, military personnel, engineers, researchers at the Miguel Research Institute and more. The children's homes have reopened, the library is active and Corland tells of “an exciting change. There is a new life, there is community life, education and culture. "She notes that in the Corona year, there was an increase in applications from young families seeking to leave the city for the countryside.
Now is the time for the pool to return to other days known to the kibbutz. Ten years after it was emptied of water and after thorns and weeds began to take over, the pool was inaugurated last weekend. The place beyond being a refuge from the heat, is also a social meeting place, come back to life. "My soul rested Shabbat in the most magical place there is. The children's laughter and the parents' smile that you can't buy with money, "Corland wrote to the pool operator.
Despite her young age, she speaks in terms that sound like they belong to a different era, as well as her deep connection to the place’s heritage and great appreciation for the founding generation;
"We do not intend to go anywhere and we will continue to grow and glorify the place. We have also succeeded in fulfilling the dream of the founders - who will see that their act was not in vain," she clarified.
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