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Growing Old
Kibbutz Reshafim was founded by twenty-year olds and for many years old people were a rarity: parents of members who
came to live among us. This is no longer so. The founding members are now in their seventies. Most are healthy
enough to look after themselves, many others prefer to be cared for by their spouses, some have only the community
to look to for help for various reasons.
A former school was adapted and equipped as a home for the elderly and invalid, but people prefer on the whole to go on living in their own flats for as long as they can. The retirement age is sixty for women and sixty-five for men, but retirement is gradual and voluntary, with most people going on working for at least a few hours a day well into their seventies and often only severe disability forces them to stop. We have set up several workshops with working conditions more or less suited to their needs. In 2005 the retirement age has been raised by two years, a reform long overdue. The retirement home has not been opened and is not likely ever going to be. The number of people who need around the clock help is too small to fill the beds and make running it it a financially worthwhile proposition. Its dining room serves now as a restaurant for the few hardy souls brave enough to risk eating the food prepared by the kitchen of Beit Alpha. |