on the kibbutz live nowadays pretty much as most kids in Israel do. They go to school outside the kibbutz, come back at noon, play together till 4 PM and then it's off home. Up until about the late '90, it used to be different; except for several in the afternoon, spent with their families, kids' lives revolved around "beit hayeladim" ("the children's house"). They had school there, they played there, they slept there - it was home, and more.

The jury is still out on this incredible social experiment - for some people it was a nightmare, others think back on it rather fondly. And than again - isn't that the reaction you get from a random sampling at any class reunion anywhere in the world? I do know that, having grown up outside the kibbutz, I saw that as an essential part of the kibbutz ideology; That opinion started to change after I came to work at "Keshet" house as a "metapel" (well, nanny). The sight of 8-year old kids being put in bed by their parents, who then leave and go home, to be left in the care of a stranger... Let me tell you, at that point I started rethinking my ideology.

The above T-shirt is dedicated to the Metapel/et - women (and men!) who worked at the children's houses, and at that time filled most functions at the children's lives. I myself lasted just one year at that post - and to this day I couldn't tell you if I left because of the house work (which I abhorred), or because of the emotional stress of being father surrogate to 16 kids...