Kinneret

Kinneret Review

Across the Jordan from Degania, Kinneret was founded in 1911 as the country's second kibbutz, taking its name from the Hebrew word for the Sea of Galilee. The serene Kibbutz Kinneret Cemetery includes the grave of Rachel Hameshoreret (Rachel the Poetess), a secular shrine for many Israelis. The cemetery offers a superb view of the lake, the Golan Heights, and majestic Mt. Hermon. Among the other distinguished denizens of this ground are pioneer leaders of the early Zionist movement. A few steps down from the clearing is Rachel's grave, identified by the low stone seat attached to it. The pebbles left on her grave by visitors (a token of respect in the Jewish tradition) are a tribute to Rachel's renown and to the romantic hold she has on the national imagination. Born in Russia in 1890, she became a poet of national stature in Hebrew; she died in 1931. Rachel wrote with great sensitivity of the beauty of this region and with passion—knowing that her end was near—of her frustrated dream of raising a family. Her tombstone is eloquently devoid of biographical information; it carries only her name and four lines from one of her poems: "Spread out your hands, look yonder: / nothing comes. / Each man has his Nebo / in the great expanse."