‘I had just turned twenty when I first visited the kibbutz; the year was 1990.’

And so begins this story of a young man’s adventure into the helter-skelter world of life as a volunteer on a kibbutz.

Like thousands before him, Joseph Birchall had arrived in search of sun, excitement, beers by open fires, new friendships, and ‘scantily-clad Swedish girls picking ripe fruit from the trees’.

However, things took an unprecedented turn when a man he’d never heard of before, Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait, and war loomed in the Middle East.

With 4am starts, disgruntled chickens, sparse surroundings and the imminent prospect of incoming scud missiles, Joseph’s thoughts inevitably turned to home.

Then one morning he met a young Israeli girl, and everything changed. His life and hers. Forever.

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