Notes From the Frontier

by Hugh Nissenson

Hugh Nissenson was a young American writer who was given a job in a movie project in Israel. His curiosity and interest led him to spend the next two years living on a kibbutz in the north of the country close to the Syrian border. 'Notes from the Frontier' is his record of that stay, one which portrays with great sympathy and insight the lives of pioneers striving to realize their ideal while contending with a hostile neighbor.

215 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1968

Reviews

[Marjorie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author and his wife spent the summer of 1965 volunteering at Kibbutz Ma'ayan, then on the border with Syria when the latter occupied the Golan. He interviewed various kibbutz members about why they established the kibbutz, where they came from, and about their philosophies of life. Many wrestled with their personal desires and talents that were at odds with the socialist life of a kibbutz, in particular a non-religious one. Most of them claimed to be atheists and expressed scorn toward observant Jews but at the same time struggled to adapt the very traditions that kept Jews in existence over the centuries in the Diaspora to secular socialist beliefs.
At the time of the author's visit, several kibbutz boys and girls were undergoing lessons of various kinds to prepare for their upcoming group bar mitzvah. Most of the tasks had to do with transitioning from childhood to being an adult and were as non-religious as possible. However, one kibbutznik insisted on the youngsters learning to chant a portion from the Bible over the objections of their parents, who were overruled. What he said to the author stays with me: " What can I hope to accomplish by having them memorize a prayer to a God in whom I have never believed myself? How can they possibly learn to appreciate the moral values of a civilization while rejecting the faith from which they're derived?"
Finally, the author recounts episodes of violence from the nearby Syrians, including the laying of mines in the kibbutz orchard that nearly killed one of the kibbutzniks, who lost a leg and a finger. Anyone who thinks it's a good idea to let the Syrians reoccupy the Golan Heights needs to read this!

[JANEY MCGEARY · Rating 4 out of 5]

This must have been one of my parents' books -published in 1968 and with the notes from its dust jacket neatly clipped out and taped into the frontispiece (if that's the correct usage of that word!). In any case, it's very interesting. I was expecting there to be a lot to wince at, given when it was written, but honestly, aside from an offensive nickname for one of the kibbutzim, not too much of that. It's a partial account of the time he and his wife spent in a kibbutz on the Syrian border. He talks to the residents and shares their accounts of why they are here without judgment and largely without comment. The casual racism from a social worker for immigrants from North Africa is, again, in her words without judgment or comment. It makes it much more powerful today, I think, as we can read it through our own lenses

[Laura Boudreau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book providing a first-person experience of life on an Israeli kibbutz at the time of the Six-Day War.