Life in the Beit Shean Valley in Israel

It was about 30 years ago when I was at Moshav Me'or Modi'in, the Israeli home of the Chasidim of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. Shlomo and I got into a talk and he told me that I should "Do something" and I decided to take an ulpan, a crash course in Hebrew.

I was speaking English at Modi'in, as they are expatriate Americans by enlarge and I realized that I needed to learn Hebrew to fit into Israeli society. Israelis are very clannish.

I went to Tel Aviv and talked to a counselor who advised me that a good place for me would be in a Kibbutz Hadati or a Modern Orthodox kibbutz, which is not as strict as an Ultra Orthodox kibbutz like Shalavim. So, he signed me up for what he called in a bravado tone of voice as "Ulpan on Shluchot!" Shluchot is a kibbutz in Israel's Beit Shean Valley.

The kibbutzniks were very nice to me. I weight lift and they made a series of barbells for me out of poured concrete. I used them until I joined a gym run by the Irya or "Township."

The leaders of the kibbutz gave us a speech telling us what a favor they were doing for us and how we could never repay them for their help. Actually they tell all the kibbutzniks that and we were no different. Well, I hate to tell them but the US government gives Israel several billion dollars a year in aid and without the support of the Christian Zionists and the Jewish Israeli lobby, Israel would have been toast years ago.

I had to work 4 hours a day and study Hebrew 4 hours a day. Mostly we worked in the chicken coop and in the carrot-sorting factory. It wasn't easy but I made a host of new friends on the ulpan, from the Israeli Nachal garine (see my piece on "Israeli Reminisces") and I also made friends in the gym I joined in Beit Shean.

The food at Shluchot was really good and they even had a seltzer machine for fans of carbonated beverages. And the food was plentiful. I was in Heaven.

I wore a yarmulke, ate kosher food, played the religious songs mentioned next paragraph and was not pressured into doing anything religious that I couldn't handle. In fact, I didn't even go to the synagogue to pray the whole time I was there and no one mentioned it. At Modi'in, I used to daven or "pray", 4 times daily on the Sabbath or Shabbat. It was a good experience. I also had a room there that was clean.

As I wrote in my piece, "The Art of the Kumsitz" I played my guitar and sang to the kibbutzniks and I had a really big hit with the Nachal workers. I had quite a following and they loved my singing and simple guitar playing style. Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach was as famous in Israel as Coca Cola and my being associated with him, made mea special person to the Israelis.

The heat is really intense at Shluchot in the summer in Beit Shean but I managed. It is even hotter there than it is by Modi'in. But, I was used to it by then.

I came to Israel in May of '78 and went to Yeshivat D'var Yerushalayim for 3 months. Then I was at Modi'in for about 4 months, so I wound up at Shluchot in December. It was cool when I showed up there but by the next few months it heated up. Israel only has two seasons, specifically, winter and summer. By March it should have warmed up.

They also did our laundry at the kibbutz, which was good. They folded and pressed our stuff. It was convenient just like I was still living at home with my folks.

The religious kibbutzim in the area pooled their resources together and had a kosher food processing plant mostly for poultry products. In fact, Tenuvah is the world's largest kosher food processor and it came out in the news the other day, that Israel's Jewish population finally, exceeded that of the USA.

We visited the slaughtering plant and so many people were appalled that they became vegetarians or symchoni. I was used to it because I grew up in Brooklyn originally and I saw people slaughter chickens from my youth up to when I was 8 years old. I knew that meat doesn't grow conveniently in clear plastic wrap and have packages with stiff foam backings.

We were the first ulpan that Shluchot ran. It was a new experience for them. And my teacher was the wife of the President of the kibbutz. She was very nice and she was bending over backwards to make all of us feel at home, thousands of miles away from our countries of origin.

Some of my fellow ulpaniks were from England, South Africa, France, Zimbabwe, South America and other countries and it was good to rub elbows with people from varied backgrounds who were Zionists and wanting to do some good for the Jewish people in Israel.

The President's wife told us, "If we don't trust the Arabs, just this once, our hopes for peace might be dashed." Former President Jimmy Carter at the time of the Camp David Accords led this effort as Israel made peace with Egypt at that time. It was so many years ago already.

At the gym in Beit Shean, like I said, I made a lot of friends. I always felt that weightlifting is a brotherhood as Joe Weider, the "Trainer of Champions" always used to say.

Joe and his brother Ben are fervent Zionists and Ben was the President of the Agudat L'maan Hachayal, or "The Soldiers Welfare Bureau." As my father's friend Harry E. was the President in the US, Harry spoke to Ben about me and Ben sent an autographed IFBB newsletter to me with Arnold Schwarzenegger on it. Now Arnold made it in politics and he is the Governor of CA.

The biggest guy in the gym in Beit Shean was this huge hulk of a lifter named Ely. He took me under his wing. He and I used to talk all the time and he was impressed by me as I weighed almost half of what he weighed and I was really strong for my size and weight.

They kept getting on my case to train my stomach, as I never had a six-pack. I am kind of like Hulk Hogan as per my lack of definition in my waistline. Ever since I was very young, I always had some pudge on my waist and my sister had the same problem.

Actually, one of the first courses I bought was The York Barbell Abdominal Course and it never helped me out. I actually used to do a lot of stomach exercises at one point in time. I finally gave up as I felt it was pointless to expend all that energy with no visible results.

There was also a second lifter in the town named Nissim ("Miracles") both of them were huge. Someone told me that Nissim used to be hakol yadayim, which means "all arms" in Hebrew. I took some photos of them but don't have them anymore.

One time, Ely tried to better his knowledge of English. As Israel was a British protectorate years ago, English is Israel's second language.

He kept asking me in Hebrew "Aych kareem et zeh b'English?" Which means, "How to you say this in English?" as he pointed to various objects. Finally, he slipped up and pointed to his finger and said, "Mah zeh?" which means, "What is this?" I lost my train of concentration and replied in Hebrew not English, "Zeh etzbah" which means, "This is a finger" in Hebrew, and everyone in the gym exploded into guffaws of laughter and Ely slapped his face with the palm of his hand and it took me a while to realize what I did to him unintentionally.

While I was in Beit Shean, I met up with an old buddy of mine from high school named Marty L. I will keep his last name a secret here. Marty was on a non-religious kibbutz run by Hashomer Hatzair, which means "Guardians of the City." We used to joke and call it Hachaver Hachzir which means "Friends of the Pig" as non religious kibbutzim sometimes grow pork even though steak lavan or "white steak" is illegal in Israel as the religious parties have a lot of clout to make laws that everyone has to keep.

Unfortunately while I was on Shluchot, there was another kibbutz called Tirat Tzvi, in the area that was attacked by the Arabs and 7 people died. Thank Heaven; I was not on that kibbutz.

Thirteen years ago, I met up with Marty again, who now called himself Meir, at Aish Hatorah, a Baal Teshuva yeshiva in Israel's Old City. He was a teacher in the seminary. He pulled the strings to get me into Aish but I left because in knew I had no future there.

One day, I hope to go back to Israel and look up all my old buddies. I still have friends at Modi'in and I would like to go back to Shluchot and Beit Shean to see my old chevra. Really, 30 years is a long time.