Kibbutz Revivim - A BIG EPISODE!
Every year, thousands of people immigrate to Israel and find a new home here. We joined the ranks of new immigrants when we moved to Israel in 2021. I can say that our move to Israel began with a stroke of luck, as our first home was a kibbutz with a beautiful name – #Revivim.
Looking back, I realize I had only a vague idea of what a kibbutz was. I thought #kibbutzim were some kind of mixture of Soviet collective farms and socialist ideas – settlements where residents primarily worked in agriculture and lived as a community where everything was done for the benefit of the community. But after living on a kibbutz for a year and a half, my perception of them changed. I learned that many kibbutzim differ greatly from each other. I learned that some "classic kibbutzim" have indeed taken the socialist path, while others have embraced commercialism. Some kibbutzim still prohibit private ownership of houses, apartments, and cars, while others are progressive commercial entities, and so on.
After moving to the kibbutz and living there, I posted observations and snippets of kibbutz life on social media. I began receiving many questions about this topic. I realized there was very little information about kibbutzim online, and I wanted to rectify this situation. Thus, the Kibbutz-Life project was born. Together with the "First Home in the Homeland" program, we began traveling around the country, visiting various kibbutzim, and trying to show life on these same kibbutzim from the perspective of new immigrants. The project resonated, and we filmed a whole series of episodes dedicated to this topic (I'll leave a link to the playlist here).
This episode will be the final one, and I admit it was quite exciting to work on. Exciting because this kibbutz feels most like home to us of all the places we've been, because it's our first home in our homeland, because it's the place where we were welcomed, surrounded with care, and allowed us to very gently enter this new stage of our lives.
I thought long and hard about how to film this episode, how to convey to you the emotions and feelings we experienced living here for a year and a half. How to make sure you, too, felt the energy of this extraordinary place.
Ultimately, I collected some historical facts, some opinions from people who were fortunate enough to live on the kibbutz, some video memories taken during our time on the kibbutz, and blended it all into one cocktail. The outcome is up to you to decide.
First, a little background information:
#KibbutzRivivim is located in the Southern District of Israel, in the heart of the Negev Desert, in an area with a similar name: Ramat HaNegev. The nearest large city, Be'er Sheva, is 35 kilometers to the north of the country. Another fairly large city in the region, Dimona, is located 30 kilometers east of our location. It is in this city that the famous nuclear research center is located. Yes, the very same one that scared their Arab neighbors in the 1970s, which may have prevented another war at that time.
Of the other interesting things to note nearby, I would mention the famous Kibbutz Sde Boker, the residence of Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, after retiring from politics.
As you may have already guessed from the description, we live in the desert. But this isn't a desert surrounded by sand and dunes; rather, the terrain resembles a vast steppe, characterized by long, hot summers and short, dry winters.
You won't find the sea nearby either. You'll have to drive about 100 km to the nearest city on the Mediterranean coast, Ashkelon, and about the same distance to the resort town of Ein Bokek, which is located on the Dead Sea. Eilat, a city on the Red Sea, is the longest drive – about 211 km. The distances I indicate are the actual kilometers shown by the GPS. For example, to Ashkelon, which is actually 70 km away, you'll have to drive 100 km. That's the twist. )))))
See the rest in this episode! Enjoy!
#israel #KibbutzLIVE #Revivim