When you immigrate to Israel, especially if you're coming from America, you have to come to grips with the lack of space. Walking down even not-so-crowded Jerusalem streets with people bumping and pressing up against me used to send me screaming for the nearest gin and tonic. I like strangers to keep their distance. It's an alien concept in Israel.
Living quarters are also tiny, even more so on a kibbutz. In the real world you are free to buy the biggest house you can afford. But here on Fantasy Island, somewhere in some dossier there is an actual document that dictates to how many square meters you are entitled according to your age. If you're 30 years old asking to build an extension so your 4 children will have a room to sleep in, you will feel like Oliver Twist asking for more gruel.
When you reach my exalted age, you are entitled to 90 square meters, although you can add another 30 or 40 in the form of a second story if you pay for it yourself. I don't quibble with this. The kibbutz has a finite amount of land and hundreds of people to house and does the best it can with the resources it has. By the time you get your permanent house, leaving behind the flat that was the size of a walk-in closet, 90 meters feels quite spacious. Until, that is, you try to fit furniture into it.
How does one cope? By keeping everything as uncluttered as possible and furniture to the barest minimum. This has the advantage of also being cheaper. There is one thing about finally getting into the permanent house that is both comforting and alarming: you never have to move again.
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