The Outsiders

A Poem

Welcome to Kibbutz Gan-Shmuel, where I grew up

As I am racing to complete the first draft of my ambitious writing project, here is a short poem that was inspired by the brilliant

mary g.

’s writing prompt on the ‘royal we.’ Curiously, Mary’s prompts usually inspire me to revisit my childhood in Israel. This one is on the formative years I spent in kibbutz Gan-shmuel as a “yaldat hutz,” (‘outside girl’) from ages 12-18. While local kibbutzniks had their families living with them, the kibbutz for me was a boarding school. I was allowed to visit my mum in Tel-Aviv every third weekend. Except, when I escaped - and that is another story, for another time. Looking back, I can have a sense of humour about all the bullying and cruelty that went down in the ‘house,’ where 12-18 year olds lived without supervision between 1pm-7am. Just imagine what those teenagers could be up to, and they were. How I stayed out of it (the smoking, the drinking, the sex) I can’t explain.

My brother once asked me, “sis, where were you when no one was studying, but having sex in the groves?” I looked at him, and said, “I studied.” That’s about sums it up.

Others were not so lucky. My classmate Chen, who was actually an insider (aka a kibbutznik) committed suicide while in the army. My roommate Orly, who started having sex at the age of 14 (when I was 13) and was never in our room without a boy in her bed, got pregnant at the age of 17. I have lost touch with her and I often wonder what has happened to her.

I don’t keep in touch with anyone from the kibbutz. To be honest, I was glad to leave.

For this prompt, I was having fun exploring what it means to be ‘inside’ of something, and ‘outside’ of something (a group, an idea, a country etc.)

I think, to this day, I often feel on the outside of things, but I have learned to appreciate this place.

If you are feeling on the outside, hopefully this poem will speak to you, even if you didn’t grow up in a kibbutz.

Have a great weekend, and as always, thank you for reading me. And a very special thank you to

mary g.

for inspiring me with her prompts, and her own breathtaking writing.

---

The Outsiders

We were told that we were different. 
That we could never be like them. 

We were told that we carried the city’s smell. 
We came from the outside, and therefore

we could never become part of the inside. 
Our parents didn’t live with us. They stayed

outside. We had nowhere to go 
in the afternoon. No one to make us dinner. 

We had the dining hall, luckily 
for outsiders, without a family. 

And we had groves of avocados
to sustain us when hungry. Mashed up 

with salt, pepper and lemon, topped 
with tomatoes on a toast, they felt like luxury

to us. We were told, repeatedly 
that we were not one of them

no matter how many cows we had milked 
or how many gallons of oranges, 

lemons and grapefruit we had picked 
and carried. Our backs breaking

under the weight, but still – 
we were not good enough

for them. We were different.
We were told that we would never make it 

in the outside world either. So, we concluded 
that we had no place in the world

unless, we built it ourselves. Neither
here, nor there, but somewhere

in between. Until 
we were forced to leave. 

Until we were expelled. And soon 
we discovered that the outside world 

wasn’t as bad as the insiders made it to be. 
Because the outside was vast and limitless. 

And in this world, us 
the outsiders 

had an advantage. We had already 
learned how to find our inside 

in a world that seeks 
to place you on the outside. 

In this world, we  
belonged. 

And they? They stayed. 

If you want to share your outsider experience…

… And you can support my writing by sharing and/or subscribing.