When I first met Amir, I was aware of this rather distant man who although he had been born and had lived all his life on kibbutz was somewhat of a sophisticate. In all the years that I knew him he always wore sunglasses and sandals. I mean how cool was that!
He stared at our group in general disbelief. We were a somewhat ragtag collection of Americans and other odd mostly English speaking 'twenty somethings', who were still full of the ideology needed to take on the ridiculous task of trying to start a new kibbutz. And not just a new kibbutz, but one on the border of Lebanon, at a time when in order to even get to the kibbutz we had to have an armed escort from the army!
Amir had been given the task of leading us during these early months, before we could learn to lead ourselves. To complicate the task, most of us didn't speak Hebrew, so that our weekly general meetings which were held totally in Hebrew, passed over the heads of most of us, and the decisions that were taken at the beginning were largely decided by the very small group of Hebrew speakers.
Fortunately for us, Amir was both intelligent, and well versed in kibbutz law.
I first had dealings with Amir, when for some reason I got the job of Work Organiser. This meant that I had to make sure that people were assigned jobs to do, and mostly that our even motlier group of volunteers were properly allocated to their tasks. Amir, as the Farm Manager was the person to go to in times of trouble. I can still see him smoking his inevitable cigarette, looking ever elegant as he leaned into a chair in our dining hall and laughing at me as I tried to explain something or other in my very bad Hebrew.
Later, and thanks to Amir, I got the job as book keeper. I don't know why he chose me, but I suspect it was that he felt sorry for me trying to be a banana worker, and as I was slightly older than most of the others he thought I should be in the office. After all Amir came from a kibbutz where women worked either in the office, the laundry or with children, so the notion of women working outside was largely foreign to him. This was the start of my accountancy career, so I have Amir to thank for all of that.
Amir was something of a womaniser. Rumours of sundry affairs spread regularly through our little group, and in fact some of the women were a little sensitive when his name was mentioned. He had a long term and obviously very long suffering girlfriend on his own kibbutz, but on our kibbutz he was a single and rather predatory male. Possibly because I was in close contact with him at work, I never succumbed to his charms, but rather enjoyed a fun friendship with him, and a growing respect for the way he conducted himself with us.
In the scheme of things the Amir years were rather few in comparison to the rest of the years that we ran our little kibbutz. We did mostly all learn Hebrew, and mostly how to run a rather complicated farm. Some of us left, and some stayed, and Amir went back to his own kibbutz, finally married that girlfriend, and went on to be at different times farm manager there and also manager of their large factory. Our friendship lasted the years though, and until I finally left 20 years after the beginning I still occasionally chatted to him, and laughed about all manner of things.
The last time I saw Amir was a few years ago when we visited the kibbutz again. We met up with him at the factory, and although another 20 years had passed he remained exactly the same! Still elegant, and still smoking that cigarette and still wearing sunglasses and sandals! He still laughed at my Hebrew!!!!!
I'll miss you Amir, and think that you have gone far too soon!
