10. Israel's challenges, family and community

From that, Klil started. One of the people in Nachlaot community said, "I'm going to Klil."
[Klil is an ecological community settlement in the Western Galilee, characterized by large olive groves and natural woodland between the homes. The unique character of the village is reflected in its commitment to preserving nature and living alongside it, while minimizing harm to native Israeli vegetation and wildlife. The ecological homes in Klil are all self-built — no two houses are alike — and all electricity is generated from solar and wind power.]
John Wood, the father of all this, said, "We're not ready. You must be really developed in this teaching; it's still a bit of an entertainment for you. You're doing it, you believe in it, but you're not there yet." But they said no, and he was very upset. He said: "It's just Israelis. Before you're ready, before you're cooked, you go off somewhere and do something.” He didn't like that side of Israel, not going to the end with things, just trying out and running off. He said: "The gate has been left open, and the young horse ran out."
But I saw it a little differently. I saw it as an opportunity to start something really interesting, and it was that, that made me stay in Klil. That was my decision to stay in Klil, not the Dharma, not anything else. I didn't like Israel; I didn't like being in a theocracy. I didn't like people walking around with guns everywhere. I didn't like the sense of victim and the oppression of Palestinians. I thought this was not a healthy country, and in a way, I still think so. But Klil was such a beautiful experiment in beginning a new society. We were intoxicated with the idea.
John Wood didn't understand the deeper need of having a family. John and Vera had children, but they had no real connection with them and were all over the place. We had a very close family, as did some of the original people who came here. We wanted to build a place for our children, which is a different way of looking at things.
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With our three daughters, we don’t really fight in the family. There’s no family conflict or competition — it’s just very blessed, somehow, maybe it has something to do with Rachel and me, in some deep way. The way we live is how our daughters are like. We don’t live in a calculated way, always asking, “What’s the best?”, we live very spontaneously, with nature.
I’ll give you an example. When we wanted to travel from England, we first took a ship to Holland, since we discovered that second-hand cars were cheap there. We bought one so we could have a car in Israel, then we drove it to Israel from England.
What stands out is that before we left England, we filled the car with apples from a tree we had there. They were the most delicious apples, and you couldn’t find anything like them in Israel. We packed two or three boxes full — just apples! And we drove a car packed with kids and apples all the way to Israel.
It wasn’t practical at all. Most people would have brought something valuable or useful, people were really packing cars full of disposable diapers, that weren’t available in Israel, but we weren’t thinking like that.
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I felt ready to experiment with a new lifestyle, but I wasn't deeply enough into Mahatma Gandhi's teachings to be fully committed to his organization. I was ready to start a new society and felt mature enough to set up something fitting our situation. John didn't understand the unique needs of families in Israel and the different culture. He tried to transplant a pre-existing Gandhi model from India to Israel, which didn't quite fit.

We had a strong sense that we wanted to be in nature and start a new community somewhere. Nachlaot was a kind of model for this. The kids were already used to that. They saw that we were living in a way as a community in Nachlaot, in different houses with alternative-minded people, kind of getting ready for that.
For example, we all had different roles to support the co-op. Our role was making muesli. The kids and us would sit outside the front door with a huge bath and mix the oats and raisins. They would join in, helping to measure and mix. The kids were so much part of us, we didn't have a theory that there is us, the adults, and the kids doing their own thing, the kids were part of our daily life. We felt parenting was crucial, they didn't have their own playtime; they learned through us and by joining us.
We were looking for land for some time. We drove all over the Galilee, looking for land to start a community. The kids got a bit impatient, bundled into the car, driving all over, sometimes fighting and arguing. It was a bit too much for them, our search for land to start a community in Israel was challenging. We had a few people we were engaged with in Jerusalem, besides John Wood and his group, and we wanted to start it ourselves. John Wood and his group were more into Mahatma Gandhi and lifestyle oriented, while we were more into the spiritual side, yoga, meditation, and spirituality.
In the end, something happened. We were given a piece of land by the (Jewish Agency). They said, "Yes, we found a mountain top for you. It's yours, and it's Mountain Halutz". We went back to our group and said, "We've got a piece of land. Let's go."