Letter from Kibbutz Kfar Blum, 1947
A long-lost letter from Minnie Bernstein reveals the satisfactions and problems of kibbutz life some 65 years ago.
12
Na’amat Woman
SUMMER 2013
N
ow, I sit me down to write you a letter. May it be finished in this one sitting and sent off. Once more, I’m sure you think you’ve succeeded in losing me, but I’m not lost so easily. Have you people heard anything about me since I left? I have written quite a number of letters to Belle and Nate, with tremendously long descriptions of Kfar Blum and kibbutz life in general. I hope that you people have seen some of those letters. I could not possibly hope to repeat to each person I write all the things I have written about how I found life here, and so what I generally do is write each time as if my correspondent has read everything else I have written to anyone so far. But in this letter I will try to recapitulate for you and for myself my general impressions about the country and how we fit into it. We have been here close to nine months now. That is a pretty long time, really almost enough time for one to become part of the environment. People keep constantly asking me how we adjusted to life in Palestine and whether we are
not homesick for America. I get a peculiar feeling nowadays when I’m asked that question. I don’t seem to remember at those times that nine months is really only a short time and that possibly I may not be adjusted and acclimatized. I think that one asks himself such questions only when there is a likelihood of not being adjusted, otherwise one never brings them to mind at all. I suppose you have read the statement I’m going to make in many letters you have received from me in the course of the last 10 years. I feel as much at home here as if I had lived here the greatest part of my life. There is a trait of my character which has been pointed out to me a great number of times in the course of the last few years until even I have grown to believe it. I have been called “sameach b’chelko [content with one’s lot].” I have found it very easy to feel at home in the many places I have called home in the course of the last 10 years, and being in Palestine has been the exception. It has been very easy for me to
Photos courtesy of Kfar Blum Archives
Seventy years ago in the Upper Galilee, in 1943, Kfar Blum, was founded by members of the Habonim youth movement (now called Habonim Dror). These idealistic Labor Zionists, affiliated with Pioneer Women (now Na’amat USA), struggled against the Huleh swamps, malaria and unfriendly Arabs. The following letter, written by a woman originally from the United States, was unearthed by a Na’amat USA member, the late Esther Bernstein, who said the letter was sent to her older sister by a friend. This engaging missive was read at a meeting of her club, Orit, in Chicago a couple of years ago. The author, Minnie Berstein (no relation to Esther), provides readers with her astute observations and insights about kibbutz life shortly before Israel’s War of Independence. Recent correspondence with Yonaton Porat, the archivist in Kfar Blum, who did some research, found that Minnie was called Menucha and her husband Yis, Israel Bernstein. They had two children, Ezra and Nehama, and in 1950, they moved to Beit Yanai, a moshav in central Israel. Following are Minnie’s words, with punctuation and spelling edited slightly for clarification.