But there was another side to my kibbutz childhood. The pressure to conform was relentless. Individuality and competition were looked down upon. Children who were unusual, eccentric or sought to distinguish themselves, were shunned. We were socialised to be strong and sunny, simple and similar. Emotional expression was demeaned as weak and self-involved. We learned to numb ourselves. I haven't cried since I was 10. I'd like to but I can't.
A friend of mine, I found out years later, used to wake up every night and sneak out the window to go to his parents' room. Every night he would knock on his parents' door and beg to be let in. Every night they would take him back to the children's house. After repeated episodes, the kibbutz's solution was to move his parents to a room further away.
Years later it also came out that a girl a few years ahead of me had been molested repeatedly by one of the members, the father of another girl. The community had no consciousness of evil back then, at least not internally. Evil was capitalism, the corrupt outside world, and the Jordanian soldiers across the border two miles to the east. No one envisioned a menace within. Trust was the system's currency. Kibbutz buildings had no locks on the doors. If anyone suspected something, they probably chose to look away. When a dream is prized, we often look away from any reality that threatens to undermine it.
There was no particular motivation for schooling because the kibbutz guaranteed each member a job, housing, food. In the early days, the kibbutz school system shunned tests and grades altogether. There was suspicion in the kibbutz about intellectuals, and about separating people by degrees of excellence. When I decided to quit high school, my parents hardly noticed.
