EASY RIDER (1969) In late 1971 I arrived in Israel, and was keen to find myself a kibbutz where I could settle down for a few months to recuperate from some hard travelling. Misgav-am was a poor kibbutz situated near Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. From its settlement in the mornings there were spectacular views across rolling carpets of white cloud to Mount Hermon, the occupied territories of the Golan Heights in the distance, and beautiful sunrises breaking over the Hula Valley below. To the north and west lay Lebanon, and on clear days we could look down onto the little village of El Aadaisse about a kilometre away on the Lebanese side, and see the Arab villagers going about their business. That northern part of Israel was very volatile. The PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) would send raiders into Israel one week and the IDF (Israeli Defence Force) would respond a few weeks later. In February 1972 the IDF used Misgav-am as a base for a large-scale retaliation into Lebanon, and I shared the dining room in the morning with a host of top Army brass including Moshe Dayan with his well-known eye-patch. Eight years after my stay at Misgav-am (specifically on the night of 7 April 1980), five PLO terrorists succeeded in penetrating the kibbutz defences. They killed the kibbutz secretary and made their way to the infants nursery where they also killed a small boy. They then held the rest of the children hostage, demanding the release of about fifty terrorists from Israeli prisons. The first rescue attempt by the IDF failed, but a second, a few hours later, succeeded, and all the terrorists were killed. Two kibbutz members and one soldier were also killed, and four children and eleven soldiers were wounded. Immediately after the attack, IDF troops entered an adjacent sector of southern Lebanon to wipe out terrorist bases and to intensify the pressure on the PLO. They withdrew five days later because of heavy international political pressure. That border area of northern Israel was indeed an exciting place, and not without danger. But life as a volunteer in 1972 was relatively peaceful. Every Saturday night at the close of shabbat the kibbutz showed a movie in the dining-room. It was usually some blood-and-guts war movie or a B-grade action epic, but one Saturday in January 1972 they chose to screen a movie that had already attracted a cult youth following throughout the world: Easy Rider, starring Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson. There was a group of young Kibbutzniks at Misgav-am who were the “yobbos” of the settlement. They were in their late teens, and were the less-well-educated of the Kibbutz youth. These ne’er-do-wells disliked us volunteers, whom they considered to be hippies (which was probably a fair assessment) and hence lesser persons (which was not). On this particular night there were forty or fifty people in the dining room to catch the movie. Four of the volunteers (including me) sat on a table pushed to the side of the room, waiting for the film to start. Two yobbos came over and started rocking our table in an effort to unbalance us and make us move. They wanted to sit on that table. The three other volunteers were annoyed by these antics but didn’t want any hassles. They were willing to move just to avoid any trouble. I, however, felt affronted and (in the spirit of the radical sixties) I just wasn’t going to be pushed around any more, particularly by some barely literate young hooligans. I walked up to the ring-leader, grabbed him by his shirt, and pulled his face to within a handspan of mine. We eyeballed each other, and the room immediately fell silent. I said quietly, “we were here first – so just bugger off!”, and I pushed him gently away. All eyes were upon us. The yobbos looked around apprehensively, and then slunk to the back of the room where they sat quietly for the rest of the night. My friends and I resumed our positions on the table, the conversation in the room restarted – and the movie commenced. Easy Rider presented an image of the popular culture of the sixties era – of which the kibbutz community was a veritable microcosm (albeit in a very different milieu). It was the story of two hedonistic, drug-fueled, bikers as they travelled eastward through the American Southwest, encountering widespread paranoia, bigotry and violence on the way. Aiming to arrive in New Orleans for the Mardi Gras, their journey took them through panoramic landscapes, small mid-western towns, a hippie commune, and a graveyard. All typical Americana. The film was released in the same year as the Woodstock festival. The soundtrack featured the music of The Band, Jimi Hendrix, and Steppenwolf – most notably Steppenwolf’s song Born to be Wild, which became an anthem of the era: “Get your motor runnin’, head out on the highway, looking for adventure, in whatever comes your way.” The movie’s conclusion is starkly brutal, and leaves the viewer numbed by the casualness of the violence. But it does reflect the reality of life – even life on a kibbutz in Israel in the 1970s – as was to be illustrated so cruelly eight years later when the kibbutz infant’s nursery was subjected to terrorist attack. After the screening, the audience helped themselves to tea and coffee, discussed the movie, and then went home. Next day was a working day in the grapefruit orchards, and Halik, the Kibbutz Secretary, came around to see me in my room in the evening. The Kibbutz Committee had met to discuss the incident the previous night. They did not like to see confrontation or aggression in their midst. I was a volunteer and hence could easily be told to leave. But Halik had spoken up for me and pointed out that there had been considerable provocation, and that the yobbos had a reputation as trouble-makers. The Committee was persuaded, and they decided to take no action on the matter. I think Halik was secretly pleased to see the yobbos put in their place. I became quite friendly with Halik after that, and he invited me occasionally to join his family for shabbat lunch. I also attended some of the shabbat services on Saturdays in the dining room. I didn’t understand the Hebrew words spoken, but found the ceremonies quite moving. As an Atheist, I found Judaism quite appealing. I remember thinking that I would rather be a Jewish Atheist than a Christian Atheist. It seemed to be a better class of person.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 22:58:09 +0000
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