William and some of his high school classmates fell under the spell of the “back-to-the-soil” movement, a homespun brand of Zionism that encouraged Jewish kids in America to resist anti-Semitism by tilling the land, making themselves strong and self-sufficient. William took this idea seriously enough to enroll in some courses at a Michigan agricultural college. When he actually tried farming, he realized that everything about it, from the physical labor to the grit in his clothes, made him miserable.He went to Cornell instead.
