Utopia in the Galilee?

By Todd Pitock

Western Galilee, Israel -- There are no signs to Clil B'Galil. It is not on any map, and without someone who knows the way, you can't find it.

But up a bumpy, dusty road in a field of rocks and olive trees, you come to a community where life is conscientiously pristine. Thirty-five families have divvied up a rugged parcel of land and each has a modest house without electricity or any of the trappings electricity makes possible. There are no computers, no satellite dishes, no televisions or radios. Cellular telephones are a fairly recent concession.

"We wanted to have space and to be self-sufficient," explains Alon Porat, who searched the Galilee for years for the location that felt right. He bought this plot of land from local Palestinians and Druse in 1979. The goal, he says, was not to own land for the sake of owning it, but to have the freedom to develop a new way of life.

"We are collective and individualistic at the same time," says Porat. "We are not a kibbutz or a moshav or a city. We are what we are."

Of the many experiments in the century since the Zionist movement's official inception, this one is among the least known. But Clil residents never were concerned with self-promotion. The new way was to be simple, "in conformity with nature and the land," says Smadar Yardeni, a mother of four who was part of the tenth family to arrive, in 1982.

The name, "Clil B'Galil" (pronounced cleel ba-galeel) roughly translates as "perfection in the Galilee." On a warm autumn afternoon, a light breeze blowing through the hills from the Mediterranean, a visitor finds a group of individuals who are neither religious nor overtly ideological. Almost all came from Jerusalem or Tel Aviv with the intent of splitting from Israel's evolutionary development -- what they see as heavy traffic, high stress, and American-style materialism.

But sitting here, the flat roofs of an Arab village visible on a distant hilltop, you wouldn't know all that. Even the Palestinian-Israeli conflict seems far away. The neighboring Arabs from whom Clil residents bought the land continue to hold rights to and harvest the area's many olive trees.

From the beginning, the community planted gardens and raised its own goats and cows. Children were educated at a nearby school, and money, residents say, was not a problem. Unlike the kibbutzim that clung to a system that would have already failed but for government intervention, Clil B'Galil adjusted as needed. In 1989, the residents saw more money would assure their independence, so they began producing a range of organic dairy products -- flavored yogurt drinks, fresh and fine aged cheese - - that caught on with the Israeli public. The business created a need for greater contact with distributors -- hence, the recent appearance of the cell phones.

On this day, government officials are conducting a land survey to legally recognize Clil. Clil wants a permit to move the dairy, which has invited truck traffic, away from the center of the community. The surveyors gather at a picnic table, where they sample the cheeses and yogurt drinks, and inadvertent sounds escape them indicating their approval. The government's enthusiasm, though, is not just gustatory. It remains concerned about demographics in the Galilee, which is only 20 percent Jewish. While 35 families doesn't dent the statistic, Clil is an example of Jewish empowerment, which the government wants others to emulate.

An 81-year-old man hauls a bucket in each sinewy arm and flashes a winsome smile as he continues toward his work in a field. He came two years ago, Yardeni explains, to be with his son. Admission was not automatic, though. Eighty percent of Clil residents have to approve a prospective resident's application. But the community continues to grow ("organically," says Porat), adding about a family a year. The latest is one of its own sons, who had moved away after his army service but returned with his city-bred wife.

Clil residents, despite having literally retreated to the hills, see themselves as part of the Zionist mainstream. "Of course we are Zionists," says Yardeni, whose father served in the elite Palmach troops during the War of Independence. "We have just taken Zionism one step further."

The community's durability is impressive, given its size and the simultaneous modesty and grandiosity of its goals. This is not easy soil to tame, and solitude can become burdensome; even Henry David Thoreau, the philosopher who extolled a return to natural living, could bear his isolation for only so long. Clil's residents' business success -- making the product, getting it successfully marketed and distributed, then fulfilling demand efficiently -- is something unapologetically materialist MBA's would want to emulate. That the communal lifestyle wasn't sacrificed makes the accomplishment all the more remarkable.

Porat, a tall, soft-spoken man, assesses the tiny community's success with an understated shrug: "We were more lucky than clever."