If you had to choose just one word to describe Kibbutz Lotan, vibrant would do it.
Alex Cicelsky, one of the 20 young North Americans who founded Lotan 25 years ago. 'We're on the frontier - the frontier of both the country and of Judaism.'
Photo: Yocheved Miriam Russo
Not only is the 50-member kibbutz a lush, verdant spot of green in the heart of the arid Arava, but the members seem infused with a unique energy, especially when talking about the plethora of trendsetting ecological and environmental programs Lotan has pioneered. As one of the last kibbutzim to be authorized, the age range in Lotan runs from newborn to 73, but everywhere you go, a youthful feeling of life, ideas and enthusiasm seems to flow.
Lotan enjoys being unique. "We're still a kibbutz-kibbutz," says Alex Cicelsky, one of the 20 young North Americans who founded Lotan 25 years ago. "We're a totally socialist, communal organization. Israel still has about 260 kibbutzim, but only a few still functional according to the original plan.
"Here, all income goes to the kibbutz, and then our members decide how to spend it - with due consideration of our 60 kids and the five or six families who rent. Education is our spending priority, then health, then water, electricity and everything else. Individual members receive monthly allocations to pay for things like entertainment, travel, clothing or whatever else the kibbutz doesn't pay for. We like it this way. It works for us."
Everyone seems to share a commitment to the creative ecology that's become Lotan's hallmark. Its famous Center for Creative Ecology, with its recycled water-wetlands, the bird reserve, straw-bale building construction technology and a host of other recycling projects have attracted favorable attention the world over. Even the UN recognized Lotan's Ecovillage Design Education curriculum, a part of its Green Apprenticeship Program that attracts students for 10-week stints, housing them in straw-bale geodesic domes.
Kibbutz Lotan began as a project of the Youth Division of the Reform movement. "In 1979, the Reform movement decided to form another kibbutz to follow Yahel, which had been established five years before," Cicelsky recalls. "It took a long time to find the right location. We were offered several spots in the Golan or Gaza, but we wanted to live in an area that wasn't subject to territorial dispute. Ecology is the study of the relationship between creatures and their environment, so for us, choosing the right site was critical. We finally picked this place in the Arava, about 50 kilometers north of Eilat. We're on the frontier - the frontier of both the country and of Judaism."
The kibbutz is known for stunning and innovative building. 'At Lotan, the process is part of the project,' says Hiddai Shaked.
Photo: Yocheved Miriam Russo
The first members arrived in 1982. "Most of us had been active in the Reform movement for years," Cicelsky says, "either in long-term programs in Israel or with years of summer camp. Most of us came from academic backgrounds, which was a disadvantage. We knew next to nothing about literally building a community, constructing houses and finding a way to earn a living from the land. When I came with the first group, nothing existed on the Lotan site at all, so we went first to Kibbutz Yotvata. We worked for Yotvata, ate in its dining hall, and worked in its date factory. But we lived as a community in separate little houses with our own Shabbat celebrations."
About a year later, they moved to the Lotan site. "All that existed here was twenty tiny, bare cottages. Not a single thing was growing, and it was extremely hot. There wasn't a speck of shade, anywhere. Twice a week a truck would come with groceries, and we hauled water from Ketura. We had one phone and a generator for electricity. It was a real challenge."
Inda Martinez - who shortly became Inda Cicelsky - arrived in 1983. "I was with the third group. We came directly to Lotan, but for three years, we lived two to a single room, plus a tiny kitchenette. Alex and I worked together designing the whole area. For five years, I worked in gardening and landscaping. As a new kibbutz, we could get whatever vegetation we needed free from the Jewish National Fund, so we started hauling in carloads of plants - bushes, trees, flowers, whatever we could use.
"My friend Sherry and I would drive one of the vans to Beersheba, stuff it absolutely full with as many plants as we could squeeze in, then drive back. Usually we were so overloaded, we had to creep along at about 60 km. an hour. Any faster, and we'd swerve all over the road. Little by little, Lotan began turning green. We learned as we went along. At first, we planted grass in rows, but then we realized that if we just threw it out, stamped on it a little and then watered it, it would grow. That's one thing about the desert: Just add water, and everything grows."
To eke out a living, the founders tried several things. "We had tomatoes, dates and a lot of melons," she recalls. "We tried onions, cucumbers and corn. No chickens - the only chickens we had were pets, who hung out with the goats. We tried growing a waxy-flowered bush for export; that didn't work. We tried raising cockatiels for export, but that wasn't great. Then, five years later, the cows came."
KIBBUTZ LOTAN'S cows - and its now thriving dairy operation - are the stuff of legend. It began with Alex Cicelsky's personal dream. "Every day, I'd say, 'Let's build a dairy!' but we didn't have any cash. Finally we came up with a crazy idea: How about an 'Adopt a Cow' program? We raised money overseas by inviting everyone - individuals, synagogues, bar/bat mitzva kids - to become adoptive parents of a Lotan cow. For a $750 donation, we gave them an adoption certificate and a photo of their 'girl,' plus a standing invitation to come visit her. We even offered 'Mootual Shares' so people could invest as little as $2. It worked - we got our dairy. I was the first manager."
Today, in addition to the dairy operation, Lotan earns its living from tourism, dates and other crops and from off-kibbutz salaries of members. "We have 250 cows - we'd like more, but we don't have enough space," Alex says, referring to a pervasive problem. "We have a share in a date plantation, and had an interest in an Eilat fishery, but that's closed now, moving to dry land. Our tourism business is growing nicely because of our birding, hiking and ecological education center.
