by Shabtai Yaari
I remember my first trip to the moshav. We traveled from Tel Aviv to Kfar Saba, where there was a bus station, and from there to the surrounding settlements. The bus to Tel Mond left once a day in the afternoon. It was much smaller than today’s buses, with benches along the sides. Some passengers had to stand due to lack of space, and some even rode on the roof. The vehicle was packed with belongings - tools and supplies that couldn’t be found in the village. We traveled along dirt roads through Arab villages, and by the time we reached the moshav, it was already dark.
My family stayed at the home of my grandfather Eliezer and grandmother Yenta, which was the first permanent house built in the moshav (across from the kindergarten). The other members lived in wooden shacks, and some of the plots were still empty.
I woke up early in the morning and stepped out into the yard - it was completely quiet. No cars or tractors back then, the air was clean, and the grass was wet with dew. Just silence. I walked down into the yard, and beyond the fence of the village, there was a herd of cows with an Arab herdsman, and the cows wore bells around their necks. That pastoral image is deeply etched in my memory.
Most of the land was uncultivated, covered in wild plants like hilfa and couch grass. These weeds required a lot of work and effort before they were cleared from the cultivated plots. At the center of the moshav stood the public shack - a long wooden structure where all communal life took place: meetings and gatherings. It also served as a dining hall for single men and members who arrived before their families. My mother was the cook there. Later, the shack housed various tradespeople, like the barber Pozaillov.
How did we children spend our free time? There were no radios, TV arrived many years later, and the internet was unimaginable. So naturally, we spent most of our time outdoors, in nature - and there was plenty of nature. I remember that after the rains, beautiful flowers would bloom, and fields were filled with red anemones. After them came poppies with black stamens, and then tiny buttercups. We watched butterflies and all kinds of insects. We saw how the small antlion created a tiny pit in the sand and how ants would slip down into it. We saw the dung beetle form a ball from droppings and roll it backward.
I was about nine years old when we moved to the moshav, so I remember the school period well. Back then, the school was in the “Camp” between Tel Mond and Kfar Hess. We walked to school - there was no transportation, of course. The path led from Ein Vered through the orchards and valley to the camp. We walked in the rain and in scorching heat. We older kids had to hold the younger first graders by the hand and look after them.
Our classroom was in a long train car, where two grades were taught by two teachers. In the first class, there were no children from Ein Vered. We were the second class, a combination of two age groups. In that class were Tuvia Furman, myself, my sister Atzila, Leah Pollack, Dov Tavori, Avner Halevni, Yona Simner, and the Lehne siblings - Micha and Vicky. Later, when immigrants from Germany arrived at the moshav, Idith Steiner, Mordechai Rothschild, and Elisheva Lapides joined us. Tzvi Weinberg was our Bible teacher and also taught singing - he had a small concertina he would play. David Gilboa taught literature and used to read to us The Journeys of Hans Urian, a book we never seemed to finish.
Later, we moved to a school built in Kfar Ziv, where we were joined by teachers Rosa and Chaim Shiber and others. The path to school was a sandy road, and there wasn’t a single house between Ein Vered and Kfar Ziv. As we grew older, we rode donkeys and tied them to the school fence. Sometimes a student would sneak out and untie a donkey, creating chaos among the animals.
During the 1936–1939 Arab Revolt, it became dangerous to walk to school, so temporary classes were opened in the moshav for the children of Ein Vered. Eventually, we returned to school in Kfar Ziv, where we studied until tenth grade. The rest… is left to other storytellers.
From: Bilha Nachman, 2000, “Stories of Ein Vered – Seventy Years of the Moshav 1930–2000,” Ein Vered Moshav Publishing.