Rachel Blaustein’s Kinneret, A Child’s Poem of Israel

by Dorit Sasson
Sitting on the edge of the pebbly shore of Kibbutz Ein-Gev, I realize that this is no ordinary kibbutz, and this is no ordinary shore. This is the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Well, not really a sea, but a manmade lake Israelis call the "Kinneret."
The name, "Kinneret," comes from a poem called, "V'Ulai" by the early Israeli poet, Rachel Blaustein. It was written in 1923, while Rachel was living a lonely life in a small, one-room apartment in Tel-Aviv. She was dying of tuberculosis, and the poem recalls her heady youthful days at Kibbutz Degania, on the south shores of Lake Kin...