May 25, 2020
Driving a Tractor
I have never told this story before.
The reason I never tell this story is because it requires the reader to believe two things which, all things being fair, are frankly a little hard to believe.
The first thing is having once slept with a woman who later went on to become a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model.
I will let you try to absorb that. A bit hard to swallow. I mean, I know, even if you are feeling generous and are willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, it feels more than a little outside of the realms of possibility. I understand. I don’t blame you. I have trouble believing it too. It is why I never ever tell this story. Because, if you have trouble believing the first thing, there is absolutely no way you can possibly wrap your head around the second. Which is: I can drive a tractor.
In 1981, I went to Israel in order to spend some time on a kibbutz learning to speak Hebrew. The program—it was called Ulpan—was very popular amongst young North American Jews and I saw it as an opportunity to learn a little more about the country where I had been born.
The Ulpan program was set up as learning Hebrew for half the day and volunteering doing manual labour on the kibbutz for the other half.
The Ulpan office was in Tel Aviv on Hayarkon, and I immediately hit the jackpot by being assigned to Kibbutz Yotvata.
Yotvata was a legendary kibbutz in the Israeli Negev Desert and was famous for their dairy products. Although crazy hot in the summer, it was the perfect place to be in the fall and winter months which were now ahead of me.
Yotvata is only a few minutes from Eilat and is on the southern tip of the country. It was as far as you could go. I got dropped off on the side of the road after a five-hour bus ride. The scenery, the combination of the desert and Jordanian mountains in the background, was breathtaking. I lugged my backpack down the long kibbutz drive and was directed to the Ulpan program residences. Although, army barracks might have been a better term.
I walked in and met the three guys who would be my roommates. They were not in good spirits. They had just learned of their volunteer work assignments and they were not happy.
“Fucking dairy at 3:00 am in the morning,” spat out Hershel, who was from West Bloomfield, Michigan. “Fucking 3:00 am!”
The other two, who had still not bothered to introduce themselves, did not speak. But they both looked very sullen
The dairy. That did not sound great. I’m not sure what I had envisioned. I guess standing on a ladder picking oranges.
One of the other two stuck his hand out and introduced himself. “Joel Gordon. I’m from Rochester. I heard the smell was disgusting. I heard two of the girls had thrown up.”
Hershel said, “You better get your ass over to the volunteer office. Go meet Arik.”
“Arik?”
“Arik Ben Simon. He is a real asshole.”
Joel Gordon said he would show me the way. We didn’t speak as we walked down the narrow path to the kibbutz volunteer office. Joel stopped at the doorway, not wanting to incur Arik’s wrath again, and gently nudged me into the office.
Arik Ben Simon looked like the poster book of an Israeli kibbutznik. He had a scruffy beard, a round hat, and was wearing blue dirty overalls. He looked like a man who had never owned, much less, worn a tie. If he had one, it was likely only to strangle people.
He pointed to a chair and told me to sit. He had still not looked up at me. When he did finally look up, it was to give me a speech. It was clear it was not the first time he had delivered it.
“I don’t like Ulpan. You want to learn Hebrew. Learn it at home. This is a kibbutz. We work the land. We produce food. I don’t have time to hold hands and sing kumbaya with soft North Americans who are here for a genuine Israeli experience.”
When he said ‘experience’ he used air quotes. But when he did it it looked like he was scratching someone’s eyes out.
He continued without missing a beat.
“The Ulpan program people all work in the dairy. You know why they work in the dairy?”
I was only 21, but I knew a rhetorical question when I heard one, so I kept my mouth shut.
“I’ll tell you why they work in the dairy. Because we have determined that is where they can do the least amount of damage. Stacking and unstacking crates. Do you understand?”
Again, I chose to stay silent.
But this time the question was not rhetorical.
“Gever gever. Are you mute? Can you not speak? I asked you if you understood?”
I nodded my head yes. I couldn’t speak. Partly because I was scared to death and partly because I had a mouth full of kaak—the hard Egyptian sesame mini bagel—which my mother had packed for me in a small plastic bag for my flight and which I had begun to eat nervously while Arik was midway through his diatribe.
“What is that?” he demanded to know. “What are you eating?”
I held up the plastic bag which still held three kaak.
He extended his big meaty hand and I deposited the bag.
He turned the bag upside down and examined the bag from different sides. Then he reached into the bag and held it up to the light. Like a jeweller examining a diamond.
And then the bear turned into a lamb.
He looked at me and said, “Kaak.”
My speech came back and I said, “My mother made them.”
He nodded his head and then gently said, “Efshar. Is it okay if I have one?”
I hadn’t started my first Hebrew class but I knew enough words to answer, “Beitach!” Of course you can.
Arik ate the first kaak and then the next two without asking.
He licked his lips.
“You know how long it has been since I have had kaak?”
I shook my head no.
“A long time. These are almost as good as my mother’s. Almost.”
I just sat there and said nothing.
He opened a folder and held up a file
“Aaron Zevy. Ottawa, Canada. Okay, Aaron Zevy. Tomorrow at 7:00 am you work with me. Bananot. Yallah, bye.”
The bananas was the kibbutz’s cash crop. Every banana was shipped for export. We never ate a single banana in the dining room.
This is how it worked.
Each banana tree had one bunch of bananas. A volunteer would stand underneath the bunch while an Israeli with a huge machete would chop off the bunch. The trees were short and the bunches hung low so you could cradle the bunch on your shoulder until the Israeli chopped it off. You would then walk the bunch of bananas into the flatbed trailer behind the tractor. Someone was supposed to move the tractor from time to time as we moved further away down the row of banana trees.
But nobody ever did.
There were two Dutch girls, Ingrid and Bridgette, who took an immediate dislike to me and my work ethic. They could put a bunch of bananas on each shoulder and make three trips back and forth to the flatbed during the same time it took me to make one trip with one bunch. I heard their grumbling. It was Dutch but I know grumbling when I hear it.
By mid-morning, I was beginning to realize that my mother could not possibly make enough kaaks to keep Arik from wanting to take the machete to my head. Or at least banishing me to the dairy.
But you should never underestimate the power of Fernande Zevy’s kaaks.
Arik pulled me aside and asked, “Tell me, Aaron Zevy. Can you drive steek?”
I had, up to that point, not even driven a car. Much less one which had a stick shift. Let alone a tractor. I had driven a bumper car at the amusement park.
But, I thought, how hard could it be?
But this was no time to be timid.
“Are you kidding, I got a tractor for my bar mitzvah.”
Arik swore in Arabic and motioned me to follow him into the cab of the tractor. Turned out I was a natural.
Go figure.
And so, for three months of the winter of 1981 at Kibbutz Yotvata in the Israeli desert, I drove a Massey Ferguson model 1084 tractor. I got pretty good too.
I’d like to say that the Dutch girls came around and we all became life-long friends.
But they didn’t.
Can’t really blame them though. One time I lost control of the tractor and ran over Ingrid’s foot.
Ingrid Van der Hooven. Her foot healed and she became a model. Even landed in the pages of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition.
Oh, did I say slept with? My bad. I meant ran over.
But seriously, how else was I going to get you to read a story about driving a tractor?
The end.