"In the whole month and a half since..." Her speech pauses for a moment, "The only days I can say that my soul was really in good shape was when I took myself out into nature."
Gvanim parking lot on the southern side of Makhtesh Ramon. Three gazelles look at the moving cars, wondering what the people are doing on the days. Last night, forecasters warned of heavy rains and flooding. By morning, there were mostly walking clouds on the road, rain coming and winter sunshine warming some birds gliding over the empty parking lot. As strange as it may sound, it is quite strange to see an empty desert. Somehow we got used to seeing the Israeli desert dotted with hikers, challenging jeeps, stargazers or off-road enthusiasts or privacy-challenged couples. But like all good things, only when they're not you notice how deep their absence is. Today, the desert is as empty as the ancient desert, the birds of the parking lot are jumping for the arrival of the hikers' bus and its many crumbs, which will bring the desert out of the sit-in that was forced on it "ever since".
"Already on Saturday, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel absorbed everyone who wanted field schools," says Liali Melman, director of field schools in the Education and Community Division of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel – a long title for a skinny, energetic woman with a disposable mane of hair. "It happened that our young units were on site, and all our training teams immediately arrived at the evacuated hotels and provided first responders at the Dead Sea and Eilat. And so we could find a way to reach the kids and give them something to do, whether it's a game or a hotel activity, and bring creative equipment.
Lake Har Tov (right) and Shahar Halperin, photo: David Peretz
"At first we concentrated on educational work in the evacuee centers, but seriously, where do you breathe better – here or in the center? After October 7, we thought to ourselves that this time it was not the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, but nature for the protection of society."
The company's staff raised funds and approached evacuated communities from the envelope and the north with an offer to take their youth on trips to the quiet corners of the country. Melman: "It wasn't easy for everyone, there were places where they told us, 'Take our children for three days or more?! In the current situation?! No way!' but there were those who flowed with us." As we speak, groups of hikers from the north are touring the Middle Arava, and we are waiting in the empty parking lot for the "youth" of Kibbutz Bror Hayil, who will arrive at the beginning of their trip.
"Good morning, guys," Uri Arens' voice cheers. No matter how many decades have passed, or how up-to-date and fashionable their mustaches are, some things will never change in travel guides. The teenagers emerge from the bus dazzled by the sun. The webs of sleep have not yet been wiped from their eyelids, but their hands are already raised to observe the mitzvah of selfies. Jumping, hugging and teasing, shouting and giggling, the tired energies of youth rush to burst forth near nature.
"Guys, we start our trip with a game, in which each and every one of us sings - 'Come, come, good morning', dance in a circle and invite whoever will dance with you and choose the next one in line after you. Come on, come on."
The teens jump disciplined in the middle of the circle, until one of them is brilliant and asks a bespectacled boy in an upside-down baseball shirt: "Come on, where are you? Let's do it in the East." The boy complies and begins to sing "Good Morning" by Omar Adam. Only in Israel does a poem written by Tchernichovsky, a Hebrew poet born in Ukraine, as an adaptation of a German folktale called "Rumpelstiltschen," including evil elves and kidnapped children, become a "Mizrahi" poem. The paradox does not bother the girls who wonder: "Why is there no reception? And what does it mean that the route is six kilometers? You said it would be a short route."
"It's really short, but steep," the guide replies. "Come on, youth," one of the boys shouts, encouraging his friends to leave. "Don't forget that 7,100 meters is already considered too far."
Life is not a painting
The route begins with a steep and soul-short ascent, the youthful climbing it without a problem. "Well done, Teacher! Who would have thought that an older woman like you could make this ascent," says one student, "How old are you? 30?".
The ascent to Mount Saharonim is particularly narrow and steep. We walk in a long line, gradually ascending and descending between ever-higher peaks, with conversations flowing from all sides. "Do you know the difference between this trip and a beret trip? A beret trip has a purpose, dude, this trip is just a respite," says a muscle-and-laughing boy. "Enough, how much is possible with this pause, one more pause and I fade away completely," laughs his friend.
Partnership of destiny. The young people in Makhtesh Ramon, photo: David Peretz
"How steep that is, Mommy!" One of the girls looks at the long slope that leads to the bottom of the mountain. "You weren't afraid of Hamas and that?" shouts a friend from somewhere in the column. "Oh yes, you know - whoever believes is not afraid... But I'm not sure that applies to lifts like that!" Two girls chuckle at the belief. "And who believes just a little?" one of them asks her friend quietly. "I'm scared a lot," the friend replies.
In the meantime, the guide tries to instill in my youth a little knowledge of the time and place. "Applaud the biggest crater of the heart in the world," he suggests to them. They are answered with an almost Mondial enthusiasm, which quickly subsides. "Hey, tell me, didn't they say we'd be at the mall today? How exactly is this hole in the middle of nowhere a mall? I thought we'd go somewhere where you could buy things," complains the Faith Girl. Her friend shrugs, "You stupid, why didn't you realize it was a joke by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel? Besides, haven't you had enough malls in Haifa all month since?"
The column continues to move upward, and the portable speaker war resumes in full force. In front, a beehive hums that it's "a simple thing, if together, then only separately," while at the end of the column, Eyal Golan gives a spiritual soundtrack to the desert: "Another smile, another smoke, another word that easily breaks / Another vague dream about how hard it is for me when it's easy / Another sunrise I get up, wake up from blind faith / What is forbidden and what is allowed to be happy." The teacher is not convinced. "I don't understand why you brought speakers for this beauty. Enough, change the atmosphere with the songs, you killed us."
Trying to "normalize time"
The walk continues. A shaking stone descends into the abyss. Glances look for other eyes to hold onto, wondering that everything is okay, and then understanding achieves the anxiety and everything returns to the loose tension of the abnormal. I ask my Tor neighbor if they've tried to talk to them about how to deal with anxiety. "Sure they tried, but they know that if they asked us, 'How do you feel?' we wouldn't talk about it at all, so all day long they let us draw paintings and then ask us, 'What do you see in it and what do you feel in the painting?' Do they think we're kids in kindergarten, that we don't understand the trick? Do they forget that a month and a half ago we debated exactly how we would die, and that since then I've been sleeping with a knife under my pillow?"
And among yourselves, are you talking about it?
"It's like I read about Holocaust survivors who didn't speak. We talk a little bit about the things that happened to us and about the friends who are gone, but about the really big story - we keep quiet. Can't you explain to someone who wasn't there?"
The column stopped for drinking and the guide's "safety checks." Youth stretches out on the floor, each touching the other. One of the girls is upset, one of the boys throws small stones at her - without WhatsApp reception, courtship techniques also return to Neanderthalism. One stone too many and her patience is running out. "Well, enough of the annoyance!" she shouts, "You're acting like Arabs," and immediately realizes, "Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to."
Liali Melman, Photo: David Peretz
Melman is not moved by the commotion: "This year we were supposed to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, instead we found ourselves handing out the bags at the end of the party. But culture and nature is what will save the world now. We wanted to put a spotlight on the youth, we saw them get lost wandering around the evacuee centers, and how can you not understand them, the parents without a home and what they went through, so I don't expect the youth to go out into the field and say, 'Wow, heart crater. Oh shit, what do you say.' But that's what's beautiful here, that you take them out of civilization, with all that it means today, and within a second they're back to being normal youth, laughing, eating snacks, singing and complaining. That's exactly what it means to give them some sanity.
"It would be very worrying if they asked what effect biomineral erosion has on the rocks here. Here they breathe differently from home or hotels. At the end of the day, educators are heavy gamblers, I wish that in six years they would say, 'Remember the trip back then in Makhtesh Ramon? What fun it was."
We descend from the top of the mountain to a stream of grottoes. Inside, we are surprised to find many groups of soldiers in the valley, sitting in groups along the entire route. Even the soldiers' commanders and commanders are surprised by the travelers who suddenly emerge. There is no vacuum in the universe, a month and a half without hiking, and nature has become a respite for army soldiers. They look at the young people with amusement, which turns into awe-inspiring appreciation when they find out where the travelers are from.
The best setting for clearing your head. Guide Uri, Photo: David Peretz
During my lunch break, I sit in the shade of a lonely tree in the middle of the stream for a conversation with Shachar Halperin, Lake Har Tov and Lake Ben Shoshan. "In order to differentiate between us, my name is Dry Lake," says Ben-Shoshan with bright eyes, "and everyone knows - obviously a corps is a World Cup and Brazilian food, but clearly a corps is a special kibbutz, one of the first kibbutzim to be privatized, so there are no holidays together anymore and most of the time it's each at his parents' house and at home, and now suddenly we've grown up, really," Ben-Shoshan faded into silence.
Har Tov adds: "We were integrated into schools in Haifa, I had a hard time with all the little things they were busy with. It seemed meaningless to me, I said to myself - how detached they are! It felt like another country to me. But then they called from logic and said to me, 'Lake, hear? That's exactly what kids should do."
They told me that at home you don't talk about what happened, but among yourselves, do you talk about the events of that Shabbat?
"All the time," Ben Shoshan replies, "no matter where our conversation begins, in the end within five minutes it gets there. It's like now at the end of every decision you have to make has a different weight after that Shabbat, there's no conversation where you don't get to thoughts about what happened. And it also spills over into parallel topics, even thoughts about where you will be in the army and what these units did on Black Saturday."
Har Tov: "On the other hand, it's really hard to think about the future and make plans, everything is what will happen in the next hour or two. We started with two years of corona, and now we finish with the grand finale - war and refugees. I try to take care of basic things like going out to eat, getting organized for the day. We live in such a situation where you try to normalize time, but it's not entirely stable."
Settle on the kibbutz? Not now
"It hurt all of us, and it's very impactful. It may seem that we are many kibbutzim and each one for himself, but everyone knows everyone," says Halperin, the youngest and quietest of the group, "We study together in school, joint classes, on Saturdays we always go to the beach in Zikim, everyone knows someone who was murdered or kidnapped, or whose parents worked with that person or were friends with that person, so it hit us all.
"All of us here learned crafts with Livnat (Thorn) from Kfar Gaza, who was murdered with her entire family. As a child, whenever I annoyed the teachers they would send me to Livnat, I would come to her and we would cook together. Wow, how much I cooked with her." Against the background of the desert, it is easy to see the water bursting from his eyes, as memories of that world float out of the abyss, but Ben Shushan holds himself.
Ben Shoshan Lake, Photo: David Peretz
Har Tov: "My parents are originally from Nahal Oz, so we were supposed to go and celebrate 70 years with them on Saturday, but because the pedestrian event ended late, I stayed to sleep at home. When the sirens started I said to myself - another round, and you look at the glass half full - evacuate, a respite trip. But then we get a picture of terrorists in Sderot, and I say to myself: OK, good Photoshop, succeeded Hamas. And suddenly the first death you hear about is that of Ofir [Liebstein, head of the council from Kibbutz Nir Oz], and suddenly you realize that it's completely real, and inside the safe room it becomes a pressure cooker, a difficult situation. And they try to make contact, and you really don't understand how this whole thing happens because in my head there's an army separating me from them, and suddenly there isn't."
Ben-Shoshan: "A few weeks before, they dismantled our alert squad, they said, 'Return long weapons, the alert car broke down and we didn't fix it,' and here our parents go to the kibbutz gate with guns and Molotov cocktails that they quickly prepare themselves. And the security jeep belongs to one of the residents, it's a completely delusional situation."
"I was in the 'Alonit' of Kfar Gaza when it happened, part of a cycling group. When the sirens started, we realized it was something out of the ordinary, things like that don't happen. At first, we lay down on the road with our hands on our heads, waiting for it to end, and when that didn't happen, we caught a little pause and rode quickly to Migonit, where we waited for the sirens to stop. I remember that there were some who wanted to continue riding, and suddenly we start to see guys from the party go into the shelter and say, 'There are terrorists,' and we see wounded people and blood. One father goes out with his two children to ride like this through the sirens and the key to my car, and my father is in another shelter, and I don't know how, suddenly he arrives, and we race in a car to the kibbutz, driving through the road of Beit Kama and Ruhama. Luckily, we arrived fifteen minutes before the terrorists, we didn't really understand the situation."
And what do you think about returning home? Is there fear?
Har Tov: "It's not easy to be evicted from your home, your friends and your people. Even though we returned to the kibbutz last week, nothing left is like what it was before. I don't have any more political correctness. It's true that I don't want to burden myself, but actually, after what we've been through, you say what you think inside. I haven't heard from anyone that he's not coming back, because they don't leave home, and I believe that very much. Before all this, I would say: Yes, there are poor people in Gaza, and not all of them are Hamas. After this event, as far as I'm concerned, I don't care who and what or how they live there. As far as I'm concerned, they're all the same, I'm only interested in how we'll live here."
Ben-Shoshan: "I can't answer the question, because I didn't leave." The youth guide, Itai Zerach, looks at Ben Shushan and is delighted: "Do you understand that this creature chose to stay on the kibbutz and in the war room, and functioned here all this month? Do you understand what a group of champions I got and why I can't leave them?"
A tribe of brothers and sisters
Somewhere there's Paul Trunk and Jimbo Jay's "Settle in the Kibbutz." "How stressed is it, so why a city? You'll settle on the kibbutz at half price." In the desert silence, last year's song lyrics sound farther away than snow in Ramon Crater, another world.
Halperin asks: "It's important to me that the media say it's wrong that because our first home on the kibbutz is 7,100 meters from the border and not 7,000, we're not within the immediate range of the immediate envelope. And our older neighborhoods don't have safe rooms, and I don't understand how these elderly people are supposed to get to the shelters in 15 seconds. Even on a scooter this is not possible. Tell them, let them read, let them know it doesn't make sense, let them come themselves to see that it's impossible."
Har Tov: "Bror Hayil is a large kibbutz, but only now have we realized that it's also really a community in every respect. Now we are brothers and sisters. Against our will, we have overcome and matured together, there is more inclusion and more understanding between us. A partner in destiny."
The end of the route is approaching, now the quarrels are concentrated on fantasy, or in other words: what is better to eat at the observatory - McDonald's or Shawarma. "Of course shawarma, it's kind of healthier," says one of the girls. It's not clear what's left of all the talk about weathering rocks, but hiking in nature did its job, the muscles in the legs and the physical activity managed to ventilate and crumble the weight of the period. "Compared to yesterday, they look much happier and cheerful," diagnoses Regev Manor, a graduate instructor from the Shikmim Field School.
Manor is the responsible adult who accompanies and supervises the team of volunteers for the year of service, themselves twelfth grade students until a few months ago. Due to the war, this is one of the first trips they guide, and their desire to wrap the children in explanations about the crater, the rocks and how Nike's designer stole the sole design from the ibex - is great. "Don't be upset if they don't listen to your every word, they've been through much more difficult things than your explanations. Let them enjoy nature, that's what matters," Manor smiles.
The finish parking lot is revealed to us at the end of a difficult ascent. "I would be willing to sign off now without hesitation on a world of alarms and missiles forever, if only we had cancelled the events of that Saturday," says one of the escorts. Some of the guys notice the redemptive bus, become energized, jubilant and happy, and start racing towards it by singing "Am Yisrael Chai."
"Wai wai, what fake kibbutzniks are with these songs," one of the older girls says, shaking her head in disagreement. After a few steps, she shakes her mind and smiles: "Really? Let them hear what they want, both that and the songs from the beginning. It's as Israeli as it gets, let them enjoy."
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