Chicken Pluckers In The Promised Land

It's 3:45 a.m. on a Wednesday, and my injection-molding machine hasn't broken down so far. It's a small blessing, sure, but one of the delights that helps get you through the night shift at the Duram Rubber Products factory here on Kibbutz Ramat Hakovesh in Israel.

I make widgets. Actually, I make chicken pluckers, which are used to pull feathers off poultry, but I've never been in a poultry processing plant. As far as I'm concerned, the pieces I help make might as well be widgets. The Duram rubber factory makes a wide range of chicken pluckers for a wide range of chickens. There's a difference, you know, in how hard it is to pull feathers off various sorts of chickens. This is what a kibbutznik told me when I first started working in the factory. I'm learning a lot here. I've almost mastered the injection-molding process. One of the mechanics is teaching me how to troubleshoot the two Italian-made machines in my charge. I wear work boots and heavy gloves, and it's hard to remember that I once sat behind a desk in the midtown Manhattan headquarters of BUSINESS WEEK and pondered corporate takeovers and trade negotiations. Indeed, in the nearly three months I've been on Kibbutz Ramat Hakovesh as a volunteer and Hebrew student, I believe I've adapted well. I think light manufacturing becomes me.