ABOUT BET ZERA

CHRONICLES - "HERE IS BET ZERA...''

Bet-Zera, a Kibbutz in Israel's Jordan Valley, 200 meters below sea level, 15 kilometers south of Tiberias on Route 90, the North-South main roadway. The fourth Kibbutz to settle in the valley, after Deganya Alef, Kvutzat Kinneret and Deganya Bet.

The name comes from the Talmud. The founders of the kibbutz, not liking the first three names given to them, turned to H. N. Bialik, the Poet Laureate who chaired the National Naming Committee in the 1930s, and he quoted: "Here Bet Zera, here Bet Neta , meaning - This is the plot of land needed for a seed, and that is the plot of land needed for a plant.

HISTORY

1921-1934 - The 34 founders - from Germany, Austria, Polish Galicia, Checkoslovakia and Hungary - made Alyia, in small groups or individually, and gradually built a small ''Kvutzah'' [group] of an a-poltical affiliation and tolerant philosophy. September 1927 - the first furrow ploughed, First House built.

1929-1935 - Sixty-five members of "Kibbutz Lita Alef" from Lithuania, seniors of the HaShomer HaTsair Zionist youth movement, made Alyia, lived 5 years in temporary compounds while bonding to a coherent collective, and joined the Kibbutz in 1934. While the Kibbutz itself joined the HaKibbutz HaArtzi Settling Movement the founders, including a few orthodox practicing the Mitzvahs, kept their socio-cultural and political freedom.

1941-1950 - "The Polish Hashlama [Complement group]", about 80 members strong, mostly holocaust survivers, join the kibbutz, reinforcing the lines.

1936-1969 - 15 Youth Alyia groups grow and mature in the kibbutz; starting with ''Youth A'', boys and girls plucked out of Nazi Germany by Henrietta Szold and closing by ''Ofarim [Bambis]'', Israeli children of the 1950s' immigrants. About 50 of them make their home in Bet-Zera.

1946 - The first kibbutz-born children come of age, start a family and join their elders. By 1990 about 75% of kibbutz' members are Bet-Zera born and their spouses.

1950 and forward - variety of people absorbed: hired teachers marrying in the Kibbutz, city families looking for security and quality of life, girls on National Service duty and ''Olim'' [immigrants] from Belgium, Argentina, Brazil, the USA, Yemen, Scotland and Switzerland - all add their individual color to Kibbutz life.

DEMOGRAPHY ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM

300 members (140 of them are 60-95) 40 candidates and guests 30 soldiers 150 children 0-18 years old 5 members' elderly parents 180 temporary population - new immigrants from the former USSR, hired professionals and their families, residents, students and boarding-school students. Total population on the Kibbutz - 700 - from the just-born baby to 99 years-old Hungary-born Katya Keren in the Golden Age Home.

HOW DO WE MAKE A LIVING?

AGRICULTURE

Plantations of Bannanas, Dates, Avocado-pears and Litchi. Livestock - Milking dairy, milk-calves. Fifth part in Agricultural Coop, uniting five of the Jordan Valley kibbutzim; the Co-op grows a variety of crops, in the unirrigated system, answering market demands.

Transportation - a few trucks and trailers employed for medium- and long-distance runs of produce and/or industrial products all over the country.

ARKAL INDUSTRIES [from 1964]

Three factories, all working on the injection-molding basis:

Arkal Plastic Pruducts - variety of packing containers, variety of items for the DIY super-stores and parts for the automotive industry. Arkal Filtration - water-filters of all sizes, mostly for the agricultural industries but also for home use, public buildings, hospitals and industry at large. The Export map of this branch covers all the globe. This division has a 30% partner - Bermad of Evron. Arkal Media - Audio cassettes, the Agass branch make throaway cutlery.

EDUCATION From NURSERY to ACADEMY

In the not-so-far past kibbutz' children grew in the classic ''communal education'' system, a kind of a Kids' Republic supervised by adults, aiming at developing the natural abilities of the child and prepare him/her for independent, useful and creative life. The spirit is still there but the ensemble of educational and child-care facilities now looks the same as everywhere else: Day-Care and Kindergarten, catering to children from other places as well. Yellow School-Bus for the Primary School in a nearby kibbutz. Junior and Senior High-School, still in the same compound, under the sign of Integration - 3/4 of students-body come from other places and represent the variety of Israeli life - from new immigrants' kids to inner-city children of families-in-distress who are given a chance here to children of local cities' elites groups who want to give their children not only learning, but education as well. More than half of the students are in a boarding-school. Academy - All kibbutz-born and members' children have the right for higher education and to acquire a profession. The variety here is enormous - from physicians, lawyers, engineers and scientists to cooks, typists and complementary medicine and martial arts experts.