Reflections on a home that turned into a house of horror

NIVA KASPI, now living in Perth, longs for the time when people had never heard of her old kibbutz, Reim.

Once, Reim was one of those small, indistinguishable kibbutzim in the Western Negev Desert. When someone asked where exactly it was, we would answer, begrudgingly, "near Kibbutz Be'eri". "Aha!" would come the predictable spark of recognition. Because that’s how it used to be: Be'eri stood as our larger, more accomplished, widely recognised sibling – a rival in the way only siblings can be.

Between Reim and Beeri runs the Little Wadi, but in October, as you take the last bend heading south on the road to Reim, the landscape takes on a monotonous golden-brown theme, occasionally punctuated by a lone, stooped eucalypt, a precision-cut orchard, or a tangle of bushes, all in various shades of faded green. To the right, an Anzac memorial stands, unseen, and a short distance down the road, just before Kibbutz Reim’s entrance, is where thousands of young revellers would have been dancing on the morning of October 7, when the percussion of gunshots and rockets merged with the beat of a bass.   

During winter, when a rumour would circulate that the Little Wadi was flooded, we would rush over to watch the procession of anxious vehicles attempting to cross the gushing waters. We would hold our collective breaths when a driver, unfamiliar with the hidden dips and bumps beneath the water, made a critical error.

In summer, when the Big Wadi which encloses Reim on the other side would dry up, we would head to the arid ravine to collect chocolate - cracked segments of dark brown mud that we couldn’t resist tasting.

Across the road from the kibbutz stands its most notable landmark, the Tel: a noble hill where remnants of ancient communities rest with their unearthed vessels and jewels and weapons, layered like chapters in a history book. In our communal dining room, a vast, floor-to-ceiling window frames the Tel in the distance, and this view can be particularly striking in summer, when dinnertime aligns with sunset.