THE BRAVE FILES

Before the Bottom Fell Out Today, Ronit Plank is an accomplished writer, storyteller, and mother of three. But as a toddler, she spent her days in the children’s house of a kibbutz. Kibbutzim are socialist work farms in Israel, collective communities where Israelis live and work off the land. Like many kibbutzim at the time, Ronit’s believed that children should be raised communally. She lived in a dedicated children’s house once she was six weeks old. While her parents worked, a few female caregivers raised Ronit, her sister, and the other children. The children typically saw their parents for two or three hours every afternoon on the communal lawn.  It’s hard for Ronit to distinguish between her actual memories of the kibbutz and what she absorbed from photos. For the most part, she remembers feeling safe and supported. But when she turned four, her family moved to Seattle so her father could finish his graduate degree. Uprooted from their community and unused to a typical American lifestyle, her parents’ marriage fell apart. When She Comes Back Ronit’s memoir, When She Comes Back, details life after her mother abruptly left their family to follow Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh (Also known as “The Sex Guru”). But in truth, Ronit’s dad left them first. He moved to New Jersey to start a family with another woman. Stranded and unequipped to deal with single motherhood—She didn’t even know how to write a check—Ronit’s mother found solace in the Rajneesh movement.  One summer, she dropped Ronit