Laura Emberson travelled to Israel to stay on a kibbutz after her mother stayed on one 30 years earlier. Here she talks to Backpacklife about her experiences, what she discovered and passes on some advice.

Israel has a special atmosphere.
In Jerusalem the flags fly and people have a real pride about living there – but you can sense a feeling of division - it is enshrined in a bitterness, in an uneasiness of what is going to happen next. The sense of un-resolution is constant.
It is the most surreal and strangest feeling to be sitting in a huge dining room and hear overhead the screaming of planes, which cause the windows to shake. Everytime we knew the planes were going to the West Bank to avenge an eye-for-an-eye. It was part of everyday life yet it never became banal- it didn’t feel like the people on the Kibbutz ever got used to what was happening.
Some of the landscape of the country is like something straight out of a film - black tarmac road and desert - think Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas!
The south of Israel is a large expanse of desert. The air is dry and baking hot, whereas in the north by the sea of Galilee it is much more humid and possibly cooler. Rather than looking out at a barren landscape dotted with Bedouin tents you’ll see trees and water!

I rolled up in Jerusalem a day after a bus bomb in the Jewish area of the city. I was in Eilat at the time of the bomb and was planning to leave for Jerusalem the next day. I saw the report on the news, it was horrific. Even when you know that level of violence is happening only a bus ride away it still somehow doesn’t feel real.
When I arrived in the city a reporter wanted to interview me, I was one of the few tourists still around. She asked me, “Why come to Israel? Why come to Jerusalem a day after a bombing?” I told her that you only live once and I wouldn’t be taking any buses in Jerusalem, the problems are not going away anytime soon.

I decided to travel to Israel to see what the place was like, to compare it to what my mother, who had stayed on a kibbutz 30 years earlier, has said. I wanted to see if the descriptions and stories I had been told still rang true, and I wanted to find that hate wasn’t the prevalent feeling in the country - which is what my mother had come away from the experience feeling.

Why stay on a kibbutz?

Kibbutz are safe communities dotted all across Israel based on commune principles. They are, in effect, a self-sufficient community. Everyone works for the good of the place and the other people. They may grow their own food, have a nursery and primary school and offer ‘ulpan’ courses to learn Hebrew.
I would recommend living on a kibbutz if you want a break, space to think . . . and some sunshine.
A kibbutz offers a base for travel – and if you are no longer working there you can stay at with friends you made during your time there. Whether going as an individual or part of a group there are other permanent volunteers at the kibbutz who welcome you into their community.
Of course, living in one place for a greater length of time allows for a greater understanding. You enter into a different way of living. It gave me a huge incite into the political situation, it’s right there in front of you - you see it first hand.
A Kibbutz also offers various trips for the volunteers, so while living there you won’t just be stuck on the site.
If time isn’t really an issue for you, and you’re a bit short on money a Kibbutz is a great place to spend a month or two – or stay even longer and learn Hebrew too.

How a kibbutz works:

In return for 5 or 6 days’ work you get accommodation, normally your own little hut-come-house, your food, your washing done and a little bit of money each week (about £7) to buy basics. I found I could live comfortably and not spend much of the money I took with me.
There is a real variety in the jobs you can expect to do. It depends on the geographical location, and what businesses they have to stay afloat. At my kibbutz - Revivim based in the south, with about 200 families living there - they had olive groves, an experimental farm (which was developing a multi-use grain that could be used in the third world) and general gardening work.
Inside the kibbutz they generally need help cooking the food in the mass kitchens (although you normally find these days that the head chef/s are paid), in the dining room, the laundry and at the various businesses - in my case there was a factory that had paid workers making plastic valves for cars and various other plastic bits, a chicken coup and a dairy farm.
Most jobs are manual and quite physical, and I think it’s important to enter into the experience not expecting the work to be the most interesting you have done.
There’s a lovely feeling, however, of working for the collective. All that’s expected is that you do your bit, you’re not expected to work your fingers to the bone - and there is opportunity to move around jobs.

Getting a kibbutz placement:

There are various ways to go about setting up a kibbutz placement. I would recommend first deciding which area of Israel you would like to be based in – the climate you are prepared to live in can pay an important part in this decision. Then you could chose one of the following methods:

1. When arriving in Tel Aviv you could go to the Kibbutz Volunteer’s Office at 103 Ben Yehuda Street, which is quite easy to find as it’s one of the main roads. They’ll show you various kibbutz photos, give you the low down on what they offer and then ring around for you to see if there are places. They will then give you the bus number and some directions to get you there. They will also do some paperwork and send you on your way with a free t-shirt! Although they do charge a fee, which might feel a bit like a scam, but doing it for the first time and not knowing much about what I was doing I felt it was a good way of going about things.

2. This option is a bit more exciting - just randomly pick a kibbutz. There are various maps on the internet and good descriptions in travel books. Lonely Planet is a good place to start.

3. Try emailing a kibbutz directly asking to be placed with them.

4. On arriving in Tel Aviv have a chat with some people. Israelis are proud of their country and I found the majority of people knew all the big kibbutz in the country.

5. Approach a local tourist information office once in Israel.

6. If you are feeling adventerous just get on a bus and head for the volunteer office on-site at your chosen kibbutz- again I’m quite sure people will help you find it. If they don’t have any room they will ring around for you and send you on your way to somewhere that does.

Once in a kibbutz there is always the option to leave at any time, and if you’re not happy for any reason they can organise another kibbutz placement for you.
If in doubt contact the kibbutz first - some volunteer leaders are sticklers for paperwork you might find they want you to go through the Tel Aviv office to avoid having to do it.

My experiences:

I went with very romantic visions of what a kibbutz would be like and although what I found was not what I expected it was still a worthwhile experience.
Volunteer numbers have dwindled - a mixture of the political situation putting tourists off and the fact that the number of volunteers needed is not as high.
Some people worry about bombings but to my knowledge a kibbutz has never been bombed - it’s one of those unwritten rules.
Before visiting Jerusalem I had visions of sitting up a tree in the blazing sun, picking fruit. But orchards don’t exist anymore – they no longer make enough money. Like everything a corporate air is seeping through.
I was lucky because without knowing it I went to one of the few kibbutz left that have maintained sturdy commune principles. Gone are the days where communal principles went right down to your clothes, which you put into the communal laundry and picked out a similar clean shirt to wear that day, but at Revivim the dining room was still communal.
Whilst politics within the kibbutz existed, such as the paid Thai workers who lived on the site but could not enter the dining room, you sat at a table with your friends, but were welcome at any table. While you were normally expected to work from 5am to 2pm and turn up on time, it was a really lovely feeling to be in sync with nature. Kibbutz are certainly trying to maintain their commune principles in the face of economic struggle. For how many years kibbutz will last I don’t know, but lots of Israelis and people who have taken on Israeli citizenship keep a healthy community number.
All the while there is demand and people stay in the scheme it may survive, but I felt that the next generation, the children of the members who set these places up in the 60s, were leaving - finding their own way, away from their parents’ vision.

Try visiting www.maschers.com for more ideas and a run down on some of the kibbutz.