Page 27 - C.A.L.L. #40 - Winter 2015

know new kids, and now I come two to three times a week.” Because there is only
the one small room, youth activities have to be carefully timed. The movement
has been in discussions with the city for two years to get a larger meeting
space, but still has no answer. Back on
Jerusalem Boulevard, Shamsian says he

worked in Jaffa for several years. “When
you hear them speak, it might not be clear
there are real hardships here – poverty
and crime, and parents aren’t always
supportive of their children. But these
kids want to be a part of Israel, and it’s

Beit Dror, Jaffa like we open a door for them and say,
‘Come in; be Israeli. Be a part of us.’”
Yifat Karlinsky, 39, joined NOAL as a fifth grader in Kfar Saba. Today, she
occupies the role of Dror Israel manager in Tel Aviv-Jaffa. “We no longer wait

until people come to kibbutz. Kibbutz comes to them,” she says. “We take part in
the formal educational structure as well. We work in every single school in
Jaffa, including Dov Hoz School for at-risk youth, where the students have all
dropped out of the regular framework. They get 12 years of schooling plus a
vocation – like computers or computer graphics. When they go into the army,
they often work in their field.” While she’s at work, Karlinsky leaves her baby in
Dror Israel’s childcare facilities, located in Jaffa on the grounds of a former
school. Beit Dor accommodates 0-2 year olds and is adjacent to the preschool,
which is open to non-movement 2 to 4 year olds. Her older child attends their
afterschool program. “We’re not ’60s hippies,” she says. “We’re normal people

who choose to live together. The strength of ‘together’ is stronger than the
individual. We see ourselves as very much part of the community. Our present
living conditions are hard on us.” Architect Eden Barre has worked with Dror
Israel since 1999. “The design for the Tel Aviv kibbutz was based on a
hierarchy of private-to-public spaces. For instance, there is a person’s private
room. Then several of these rooms are situated around a living room, which is
also a meeting space – just like a family home. Then you have a lobby, which is an
additional meeting room for a larger group. On the ground floor and in the
basement parking area, when you remove the cars, there are more and larger
meeting spaces.” “We tried to straddle the fine line between residential and
public. And we tried to insert the language of modern Bauhaus, which is at the
root of Israeli architecture.” The building will house 40 kibbutznikim. Residents

of Shapira are in the lower socioeconomic bracket, but the neighborhood is in
the earliest stages of gentrification. Barre says the kibbutz is undergoing the
exact opposite. On a plot where someone might build a three-story private
home, Dror Israel is planning a home for 40 people.

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