Glenn Tries t

Abba Friedman (left) and Irving Tukel share memories of their days in Israel.

Sweat Labor

Two Detroiters were kibbutz volunteers
following the Six-Day War

the potato fields," Friedman said. "We
worked alongside the combines
separating the rocks from the
potatoes as they were dug up from the
ground. The temperature reached 110
degrees."
Tukel describes the weeds in the
cotton fields as being four feet tall.
"They were neglected because of the
shortage of labor," he said. "Pulling
those weeds was like pulling up. trees
by hand."
Work started at daybreak and
often involved the afternoon shift as
well. "They used drip irrigation in the
cotton fields and every morning we
had to dismantle the pipes and rotate
them to a new location," Friedman ex-
plained. "The water was -from the
sewage system. By the end of the day
we literally reeked from the odor."
In addition to filling and loading
heavy sacks of grain, they took turns
working in the kitchen and in the
chicken house.
"Our kibbutz sold eggs;' said
Tukel. "We loaded the chickens at
night because they didn't flutter as
much. We learned things about farm
life that we never knew living on Dex-
ter in Detroit."
Friedman said his former wife
was a nurse, but she worked in the
laundry because she couldn't read or
speak Hebrew. Tukel said language
was rarely an obstacle in the fields.
"If we worked under a Hebrew-
speaking foreman, he pointed and we
figured out what had to be done."
According to Friedman, the
volunteers were formally employed
for a wage of one Israeli pound a day
so they would be eligible for medical
insurance in case of an accident. They
attended ulpan, classroom sessions
where they learned Hebrew. They
worked six days a week and on Shab-
bat they would go to Tel Aviv or
Jerusalem. Often members of the kib-
butz traveled with the group to show
them different parts of the country.
"People treated us very well,"
Friedman said. "They appreciated us
being there."
Tukel describes the mood in Israel
at the time as euphoric. "The State of
Israel had survived a terrible threat.
There was hope for peace and
everywhere we went there was a
degree of unity among the Jewish
people."
He recalls a drive to Jerusalem to
see the Western Wall. "By chance we
were next to a truck filled with
Yemenite Jews who were also going
to see the Wall. They were making a
pilgrimage of 2,000 years. They sang

,

SUSAN WEINGARDEN

Special to The Jewish News

Vir hen Irving Tukel and
Abba Friedman volun-
teered to go to Israel in
1967 following the Six-
Day War, it was not with the roman-
tic notion that they would be fighting
in the army. They went as mitnadvim,
volunteers, to do the "sweat labor" for
the men who were mobilized in the
army.
"The kibbutzim were short of
manual labor," said Tukel, now a
51-year-old Southfield attorney. "We

knew we were going to work."
"Israel ushered a world-wide call
for volunteers to replace their work
force while they were with their
troops," said Friedman, 50, also an at-
torney. "There is no question that we
played a vital role on the kibbutz."
After making the necessary ar-
rangements, Tukel, Friedman and
Friedman's former wife, Allison, went
to the headquarters of the kibbutz
organization in Tel Aviv for the begin-
ning of their eight-week commitment.

"There were volunteers from
France, Australia, South Africa,
anyplace there were Jews," Friedman
said. "They sent us to Kibbutz Gal on
in the northern Negev because there
were Americans who had immigrated
there that we could communicate
with?'
Both Tukel and Friedman vivid-'
ly remember the stifling summer
heat and the back-breaking labor.
"We started in the pear orchards.
Then we spent two or three weeks in

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