This
film is a moving tribute to the idealistic young women who settled the Israel
Kibbutz in the early days of the movement. Made by the granddaughter of one
of the pioneers, it brings to life the courage required to leave everything
familiar behind and adapt to the rigors of desert life as well as the demands
of kibbutz ideology. The filmmaker interweaves archival footage with interviews and memoirs of the survivors of these difficult times. Her grandmother and other women in their 80s and 90s recall the rigid rules and inequities of kibbutz society. They attempt to peel away the layers of idealism and collective mythology as they bring those stories up-to-date with the wisdom and hindsight they have now.
Many women experienced difficulty leaving their European homes and families for primitive living conditions and food shortages. They faced physical hardships both working - in the hot fields and at monotonous tasks of laundry and guard duty - and coping with diseases like malaria and typhoid. When they began marrying and having children, the limitations of the kibbutz system became truly heartbreaking. The women did not protest the lack of privacy or the kibbutz nursery system. The kibbutz nurse was in charge and the parents were permitted visits with their children for only a few hours in the morning and afternoon.
But all this was made bearable by their belief in a unique ideology composed of Socialism and Zionism and by their passionate dreams of a prosperous, future Israel.
