where Sam, his two brothers and three
sisters grew up.
While working toward a creative
writing degree at Wayne State Univer-
sity, Levy considered a second major in
16' chemistry. In Israel, he followed his
scientific inclinations. He is working on
a project to develop a breeding farm for
salt-water fish.
"I came to the desert to raise fish:'
he says, laughing.
Levy has had other jobs. He ex-
plains: "Some people live this im-
poverished existence. A psychiatrist
always feels he has to be a psychiatrist
and can't change jobs. The advantage
L. to living collectively is the greater ease
with which you can change your
OW employment."
I
illions of years ago the
Syrian-African rift
shifted, split up and was
raised to the skies in the
demiurgic process that
created the Arava Valley. It is a
wasteland dotted by scrubby tamarisk
and acacia trees and peppered by sand
dunes. In summer, the land is a fur-
nace; less than an inch of rain falls
annually.
I.
The Arava marks the border bet-
ween Israel and Jordan. The moun-
tains of Edom on the Jordanian side
are much taller than the range that
flanks it on the - Israel side. Looking
like the Paramount Pictures logo, the
Edomite chain turns pink, red and
finally violet as the setting sun plays
with its weathered face.
IN'
In various places, the valley is in-
terrupted by hills — earth perhaps
coaxed from the nearby mountains by
weather and time. Grofit is built on one
of these hills, augmented by landfill
and flattened by bulldozer.
The name Grofit puzzles even kib-
butz residents. They have various and
contradictory explanations for its
origin. One is that Grofit means the
new growth on an olive tree. Yet, tradi-
tionally, olives were never grown in the
Arava. Another explanation is that the
name derives from the Hebrew root G-
R-F, which means to rake or sweep, as
if their hill was raked away from the
nearby mountains.
One can look down from the east
side of the hill to fields of melons,
p. onions and tomatoes. Grofit's date and
mango trees also stand on the valley
floor. Muki Tolman says the border
runs between the Kibbutz and its
fields.
I
Some years ago, the Israelis and
O. Jordanians reached an agreement and
the de facto line between them was
shifted beyond the fields. Such are the
unofficial relations between Israel and
its Arab neighbor to the east.
Grofit's residents describe their
great frontier with Jordan as
"theoretically hostile." The border is
closed and the kibbutz maintains bomb
shelters._ But there is no sign of tension
M
in the area and the kibbutz's security
fence is mainly a formality.
The kibbutzniks also operate
chicken coops and a dairy. The Arava
flows with milk and eggs. Grofit
manages a camping village down the
road near Kibbutz Yotvata. Plans are
underway to open this year a factory
to pioduce resealable plastic bags.
Despite the diversity of its economy
Grofit, like other kibbutzim, faces
economic difficulties.
"On a yearly basis we make more
money than we spend," 'Iblman says.
"But we have a history of debts —
buildings, educational facilities — the
interest on which we can't pay back
with our profits."
Grofit has turned to the kibbutz
movement and the Jewish Agency for
loans on good terms. "We're trying to
build an economic base that will help
us overcome the problem:' Iblman says.
Telman and his wife, Pam, have liv-
ed for 11 years on Grofit. He says her
had his fill of city life and has no urge
to leave the kibbutz.
Others periodically need to renew
their connections with the rest of
Israel. They travel to Tel Aviv to the
theater, a concert, to study or to take
part in political activities. One Grofit
woman makes an annual pilgrimage to
'Ibl Aviv, checks into a hotel and has
a bubble bath.
Iblman doesn't get cabin fever. Nor
does he feel isolated: "Every five
minutes there's another kibbutz:' he
says while driving down the Arava
road toward Eilat.
"The region is very close knit and
very active:" he says. There are regional
concerts, theatrical performances and
special interest groups. A regional
council oversees the roads, lighting and
sanitation for the area's 10 kibbutzim.
art of the reason I chose to
live here was the distance
from everything, the space,
the quiet that it gives you;'
says Daniel Levy, 27, who
joined his brothers on Grofit in 1986.
"The modern history of human set-
tlement here is only 30 years old. You
have the chance to create nearly every
facet of your life. I think that's pretty
exciting.'
Like his brothers, Levy grew up in
the Ilabonim movement. He spent a
year in Israel after high school and
theii again in 1984, laying the ground-
work for his aliyah to Grofit.
"You grew up in Habonim think-
ing that kibbutz is the best thing in the
ip
A Musical Tapestry
s
ome people might view kib-
butz life as an unattractive
cycle of long days harvesting
melons or working in a plastics fac-
tory. Kibbutz is where the in-
dividual submits to the will of the
collective. It is the antithesis, cer-
tainly, of the American concept of
individual achievement.
Brian Medwed, a kibbutznik
for five years, disputes the notion
that kibbutz is no place for in-
dividual creativity. It's where he
wrote his symphony.
"I wrote it in a total vacuum,"
says the 30-year-old former
Detroiter. "I was living on a hill in
the desert with no one around who
would like the music if they heard
it?'
Medwed began work on the
piece in 1984 while living on Kib-
butz Grofit. The kibbutz allowed
him one day a week without work
to compose his music. He com-
pleted the symphony in 1986.
"Writing reminded me of weav-
ing:' he says. "You have the score
paper and you weave whatever you
want into it?'
Medwed wrote each of his sym-
phony's three movements in a dif-
ferent style. The first, he says, is a
post-romantic rhapsody. The se-
cond movement tackles what he
describes as a minimalist problem
from two different approaches. The
final movement contains varia-
tions on a dance theme with reg-
gae influences.
Despite the disparate elements
of the work, Medwed says the
result is a coherent whole. "I wor-
ried sometimes about the unifying
element. But my own musical
sense is the glue that holds it
together."
Medwed circulated his score to
be critiqued and to try to get it per-
formed. He says the Haifa Sym-
phony has shown interest in the
work and that Detroit Symphony
Orchestra conductor Felix Resnick
agreed to do a reading of it.
Medwed studied music com-
position at Oberlin College, but
quit halfway through his junior
year. When he returned to school,
he • studied the ecologies of
agriculture and soil science. "I was
thinking that I might be a farmer,"
he says.
Growing up in Detroit, he was
a member of the Habonim Labor
Zionist youth movement. He
visited Israel in 1973 and 1981,
when he married Ilene Moscowitz,
another member of Detroit
Habonim.
The couple made aliyah five
years ago. In 1987, they left Kib-
butz Grofit for Kibbutz Samar,
eight miles to the south.
Samar was founded 12 years
ago by members of the Hashomer
Hatzair socialist Zionist youth
movement. Other kibbutzim have
a work coordinator to draw up a du-
ty roster and are motivated by a
common ideology and sense of com-
munity. Medwed says Samar func-
tions well without those things.
Through experience, members
know what needs to be done
without assigned duties.
The settlement's 60 members
grow onions, dates, mangoes and
flowers. The kibbutz also has 260
dairy cows and is involved in fish
breeding.
Medwed believes the lack of an
imposed authority makes the kib-
butzniks feel responsible. Occa-
sionally, someone will not show up
.
for work, but on a given day no
more than one member is absent.
"Even the day after the last
election people made it to work," he
says. -
Having shifted his attentions
from music to agriculture, Medwed
is attuning himself to the earth's
natural processes. "The more you
Brian Medwed: 'The more you understand
those eternal things, the better farmer you
are'
understand those eternal things,
the better farmer you are," he says.
He says farming the Arava,
whose soil is unfit for traditional
methods of agriculture, is a rewar-
ding life. "Every day people learn
more about growing things in the
desert," he says. "That borders on
magic? ❑
— D.H.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
25