Three years have elapsed since my last visit, but on the occasion of the kibbutz's 70th anniversary, as I drive north to Ein Hashofet, about 12 miles south of Haifa, I quickly pick up where I left off. I reflexively revert to aggressive Israeli driving tactics, sunflower seed husks expertly split between tooth and tongue litter the rental car, and my rusty Hebrew is starting to rev up.
At the kibbutz I catch up with adopted family and friends, get acquainted with new grandchildren at the swimming pool, and bicycle through the impressive gardens (visitors often ask how the kibbutz was able to locate in a park; 70 years ago it was bare dirt and stone). I survey the new residential neighborhood springing up, the two-story houses far outshining the simple one room I once lived in.
The three small factories on the kibbutz's perimeter have expanded, and my kibbutz father, Danny Dekel, rails against the incursion of the electrical factory into his beloved avocado orchards. But light industry long ago supplanted agricultural products like apples, pecans, chickens, and dairy cows as the main source of income and indeed has made prosperous this community of 750 people.
In the last two decades, most of Israel's 270 or so kibbutzim have succumbed to capitalist privatization, and while ardent socialists like Dekel bemoan the diminished collective - children no longer sleep in communal children's homes; a computer in the dining room registers food taken rather than the formerly free, unlimited quantities - here at Ein Hashofet, whether you teach children, repair tractors, crunch numbers, or milk cows, everyone still receives the same salary and benefits. That irks some members, who will eventually pack up and head for Tel Aviv or make a go of it overseas.
