Vivien Lurie:  

After graduating from West, I went to a small university in the midwest, and then transfered to the U of WA. Graduated with a degree in social welfare, beleiving I would help save the world (in college I was active in Zero Population Growth (and later had four kids), the Open Door Clinic, where all kinds of people dropped in, freeing Soviet Jewery, open housing,and a few other causes). A couple weeks after graduation I was traveling/hitching through Europe with a couple friends, and arrived in Israel that August. Lived in several places, including a couple kibbutzim, Jerusalem, and was a community worker in a poor, undeveloped town in the south. After three years. I returned to the states for a visit, and ended up staying three years in Seattle. Met an Israeli student, Arie, got married, and when he finished at the UW, we returned to Israel, with a four month old son. We have been since living on a moshav (similar to a kibbutz) for the last 39 years. Most kibbutzim, and moshavim, have undergone various degrees of privatization over the last few years. Altho, we still have some communal connections, we are no longer what we once were, and I, personally, had a difficult time time giving up the communal lifestyle, but have moved on and adjusted. And am grateful to be living out of the city in the Judean Hills and near enough to Jerusalem, when I need to be there. For many years, members of our community were only allowed to work w/in the community so most of my work experience was in childcare (nursery school) and working in a hotel we, the community, owned, but were forced to sell because of debts brought on by two intifadas (buses being blown up etc - terrible times!!!) and no tourism. About 20 years ago, I began to study. and still do, various modalities in complementary medicine, which is still my passion. I have ...Expand for more