Kansas City native at home on the Golan Heights

JERUSALEM — What I remember most about Michael Firestone from the 1976 Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy senior class semester in Israel on Kibbutz Shluchot was his special personality.

As I sat across from Michael Even-esh, as he is now known, in his rustic home in the Golan Heights, that same personality was still there.

After returning from that semester in Israel, Michael went to the University of Missouri and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism. Then he returned to Kibbutz Shluchot to sort out things for the future.

He became a paratrooper in the Israeli army and served two and one-half years, then joined Kibbutz Bet Rimon, a religious kibbutz in the lower Galilee. There, he discovered his love for farming, and he discovered a cave and tunnels from the Bar Kochba revolt period of the 2nd century C.E. — the first evidence of such caves. He then joined a cave-research center and became a cave explorer.

During the first war in Lebanon in 1982, he told his discovery to a history professor from Bar-Ilan University and began to audit his classes.

“I got so enthused, I decided to become a guide at the field school at Kfar Etzion,” the communities 12.5 miles south of Jerusalem. He ended up spending three years living there at Kibbutz Kfar Etzion. During that time he met Tzurit, a young woman from the religious kibbutz Sde Eliyahu who was also a field school tour guide, and they began to see each other.
Mike then moved to Kibbutz Netzarim, the only kibbutz in the Gaza Strip, where he was working in the fields. In 1988, Tzurit and Michael married, and he became a sweet potato farmer.

“I guess I really got the farming bug at Shluchot when I was there in high school,” he recalls. “My adoptive family ran a date farm.”

The terrorist attacks that were part of the 1989 intifada were traumatic; people began to leave and ultimately Kibbutz Netzarim folded. Tzurit and Michael moved to Safed, and he went to work for Livnot U’Lehibanot, a work-study-hiking program for recent college graduates. It means “To Build and Be Built” in Hebrew.

He was with Livnot for four years, but by now there were three children, so in 1995, because they had friends there, they decided to settle in Moshav Nov in the Golan Heights.

Tzurit is now vice principal in a high school for religious girls with special needs, and Michael is an independent tour guide. They have children ages 21, 20 (recently married), 16, 13, 10 and 8 years of age.

“I still work with caves. I’m still in an army reserve unit, and I work with … kids … mainly with Livnot, Birthright and Christian groups,” says Michael.

There are about 130 families on the moshav and about half of the families do agriculture — dairy farming and fruit growing. It is slowly becoming tourist related, as a number of families have created bed and breakfasts.

What does Michael see in his future?

“The future — of our family, Israel, the Jewish people and the world — is in education. We want to teach our kids to be kind, caring, responsible humans, Jews, Israelis. We want to teach our own people — in Israel and all over the world — that we have much to be proud of with a unique history, fascinating present and challenging future. We would like to educate our neighbors to invest in education instead of hatred, and that it’s worth their while to be more kind, compassionate and peaceful,” says Michael.

“And it all starts right here, in the home.”

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