Taf Peulah

The year: 1907.  The place: Land of Palestine (also known as “Eretz Yisrael” to those special few… those people who called themselves…. CHALUTZIM!!!!!!…. Dun dun DUUUUN!!!!)

It was a dark and stormy night, at the end of the summer when we, the

Chalutzim were finally resting after a long, hard day of planting eucalyptus trees.  These eucalyptus trees would help us to drain the surrounding swamps, the cause of our mysterious outbreaks of malaria which were threatening the creation of our kibbutz. for months and months now we were planning our farms in the future kibbutz, but with no extra help from the malaria mosquitoes. Back in (heavy Russian accent:)  Mother Russia, we learned that eucalyptus trees can be very helpful in draining up swamps. We wanted to drain all the swamp waters in the land of Israel, because the malaria mosquitoes lived off of these gross waters, and prevented any kibbutzim from growing successfully, cause everyone was getting sick with malaria.

            Suddenly, us chalutzim heard gunshots!  We were being attacked by a band of Turks!  They wanted to get us off the land.  A desperate fight quickly began between the Turks and us chalutzim.  They wanted us to surrender, but we wouldn’t go down without a fight!  As the turks came nearer and nearer, we realized we must have a plan to defend our land, our kibbutz, and our farms. we dodged through the clouds of malaria mosquitoes, ran through the swamps, and climbed up the eucalyptus trees. The turks ran towards us with their swords ready to strike! We had to come up with a plan – and fast! One of the chalutzim shouted out from his eucalyptus branch that we might still be saved: all we had to do was to do was to go to the farms, get our full jars of collected malaria mosquitoes, and throw them right at the fighting turks. It was so crazy – it might have just worked. Might have. Because right at that moment I felt my eucalyptus tree branch cracking. As I saw my fellow chalutzim reach out to help me, I started screaming…..

            And then – I woke up. It had only been a dream.

 In the morning, we, chalutzim of the future-to-be “Dgania” kibbutz, all woke up early to start building our farms among the beautiful eucalyptus trees on our holy land. Two days later, our kibbutz stood strong and proud – proud to be the first ever kibbutz in the land of Israel.