HABONIIM'S FIRST KIBBUTZ

The members of American Hechalutz who left the United State in 1938 and 1939 spent several months in training in Palestinian settlements: Ramat David, Afikim, and others. In 1940, those of the group from Habonim and the American Young Poale Zion Alliance as well as others, joined forces with the Anglo-Baltic group at Binyamina, which was waiting for permanent settlement. This group consisted of chalutzirm from England, South Africa, and the Baltic countries. 

Until 1940, American chalutzim of the Poale Zion movement had attempted to adapt themselves individually or in small groups to the integrated life of established kibbutzim. The natural desire of American chalutzim to "start from scratch" was therefore unfulfilled. All organized contact between these chalutzim and the youth movement in America was also lost as the Americans in Palestine were scattered throughout the country with little contact, even among themselves. For a time they considered the advisability of establishing a purely American kibbutz; but the negative aspects outweighed the positive, and the suggestion was abandoned. We decided to seek a group with a movement background similar to our own, which was in the very earliest stages of preparation for settlement, and would agree to become the center for the aliya of American Habonim. This we found in Kibbutz Anglo-Balti, temporarily camped at Binyamina.

Our group never suffered from the problem of physical adjustment. Some had had collective agricultural training, others had not, but difficult working conditions proved to be no obstacle. After the first few months of "climatic" and vocational adjustment, every-one found his place in the daily routine of the kibbutz. There was a strong desire for responsibility, for being "in" on all aspects of the social and economic life, for helping make plans and arrangements. Americans with new suggestions and new ideas were needed and welcomed. On the other hand, the profound Jewish educational background and knowledge and acquaintance with Hebrew of the other members of the kibbutz helped to enrich our comparatively meager heritage. Generally speaking, one might say that the groups in our kibbutz complement one another in their daily activities and their plans for the future. There is a gradual blending of the varying hues brought from a heterogeneous Jewish galut life and a healthy economic life. From the personal and collective experiences of the group, we find that its success in rooting itself in the kibbutz and in Palestine in general has been the desire of all groups at Naame to find a common basis for collective national and social expression. From that common point it is possible to reconcile the other political, educational, and economic differences of opinion which characterize any normal group but do not preclude the possibility of living together in one kibbutz and carrying out the basic principles of Labor Zionism in Palestine: the creation and defense of a normal national life and the introduction of a new type of social society.

The situation in Binyamina was very difficult in 1940. There was a great deal of unemployment. We were the first to go into the timber industry in the vicinity of Binyamina. There are many small eucalyptus forests and non-fruit-bearing plantations nearby, and we cut planks and firewood for the army. Later on, we bought additional machinery and started the small clothes-peg industry, which we moved to Naame. Eventually production will expand to include a number of wood products.

Going on avodat chutz (outside work) as hired laborers was necessary to supplement our income and to raise funds toward our permanent settlement, we worked in the salt factories at Atlit, in the Solel-Boneh stone quarries in Binyamina, for private farmers, and on tractor and building jobs far from home. During the war we had work crews in various sections of the country.

Our participation in the struggle for kibbush avoda—conquest of work for organized Jewish labor—is the beginning of the story of our permanent settlement at Naame. An attempt was made by the private colonists to reintroduce cheap, unorganized labor; but the local workers' council, under the leadership of our members, successfully conducted the struggle for organized Jewish labor in the face of judicial punishment and even physical assault. One of our leading members was "exiled" to Metulla for these activities. Others from the kibbutz eventually joined him and succeeded in establishing a number of new enterprises there. They established a rest home (one of the first to be run under the auspices of a kibbutz), a workers' kitchen, and a vegetable garden. Some worked for the Jewish National Fund surveying the Huleh Valley; others, for the government building program of Solel-Boneh.

While at Metulla, we succeeded in obtaining several dunam of the Naame lands in the Huleh for temporary cultivation. Because of the great prevalence of malaria there, resulting in a high percentage of illness, and the unlimited possibilities for new fields of activity, we continually increased the number of people there. We became very much attached to Naame and, despite the difficult conditions, decided to try to make that our permanent home.

In 1943, the Jewish National Fund decided to give us all of the Naame lands, bought with money raised by the Jewish labor movement in America, for the establishment of a colony in the name of Leon Blum. On November 13, 1943, the cornerstone of the first building at Kfar Blum was laid at Naame with the participation of thousands of friends of our kibbutz, representatives of national and labor institutions, and the French Consul General of Palestine.

One year later, after having prepared the necessary anti-malarial buildings and precautions, all of our group remaining in Binyamina moved north to Naame. They brought the clothes-pin factory with them.

The economy of Naame at that time was based on the cultivation of every type of agricultural product, the lumber factory, and ponds in which we bred fish. Our livestock was still in the early stages of development. We had the beginnings of a large dairy and poultry branch, and had other livestock as well. Future possibilities are almost boundless. We have rich black soil, considered the most fertile in the country; unlimited water supplies; and countless new colonies settling in the vicinity.

Naame has at present over one hundred and forty members, of whom forty are in the armed forces. One of our members, Baruch Jacobson, was among the twenty-two young Palestinian Jews who participated in the mission to demolish the Syrian pipelines in 1941. Not one of these men returned. Moshe Poison, a member of American Hechalutz and veteran settler at Naame, was killed in Syria while serving in one of the Jewish mechanized units of the British army.

Activities of a different nature include the absorption of former Bergen-Belsen inmates—German, Austrian, and Czech refugees—into the kibbutz. We are hoping that our request to receive a group of refugee children will be approved.

There are seventy children at Naame, the oldest of whom is seven. Our kindergarten is an old, established institution, but this year we have organized our first elementary school class. There is only a small group of children of elementary school age. If we receive the refugee children whom we have requested, however, they will enlarge the number.

Every kibbutz in Palestine looks outward toward the Diaspora. The kibbutz is ever aware of its two-fold purpose: its place in the internal economic and social development of the Jewish community in Palestine, and its influence reflected back on the Jewish communities and the youth movements in the Diaspora, from which the members of the kibbutz come. These two general aims transcend the importance of the internal progress of the kibbutz, although they are not always consciously a part of each daily act. Naame is seeking to maintain close contact with the English-speaking youth of America, England, South Africa, and Australia and has become the focal point in Palestine for the Habonim movements in those countries.

The tie thus being formed is symbolized by the building of Bet Habonim at Naame. Money for Bet Habonim is being raised by the Habonim movements in all the English-speaking countries. The building will serve as the center of all educational activities in Palestine these movements, as a hostel for visitors and, eventually, as; a school to train shlichim (emissaries) to be sent to the various countries Liskat Hakesher (Contacts Office), organized by some of the Amerian members at Naame, has sent material regularly throughout war to Habonim. It has thus kept the members of the movement in the Diaspora acquainted with details of the daily life, economic strucutree, social relationships, and future plans of this new and developing kibbutz.

Naame is being built with an eye particularly to a large American aliya. Its further expansion and industrial, social, and cultural (development depend to a great extent upon the number of Americans who will come to take part in our new lives.

ENGEE CALLER, Kfar Blum, 1946