The Survivor
NAHAL OZ, Israel—In 1951, when the state of Israel was three years old, a small group of young soldiers set up camp not far from the border with Gaza, which was then under Egyptian control, and called the site Nahal Oz, meaning riverbed of valor.
The Armistice Agreement of 1949 ensured quiet at the border, and by 1955, the soldiers were gone and Nahal Oz had become a civilian kibbutz, or farming collective.
Shalom Yospe has made it his home since 1965, when he was nineteen years old, recently discharged from the army and embarking on what he calls “this, my sweet life.”