Kibbutz

A kibbutz (Hebrew: קיבוץ; plural: kibbutzim: קיבוצים, "gathering" or "together") is an Israeli collective community. Although other countries have had communal enterprises, in no other country have voluntary collective communities played as important a role as the kibbutzim have played in Israel; indeed, kibbutzim played an essential role in the creation of Israel.

Future

Decline of the kibbutz movement

Kibbutzim have gradually and steadily become less collectivist in the past twenty years. Rather than the principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," kibbutzim have adopted "from each according to his preferences, to each according to his needs."

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The first changes to be made were in utilities and in the dining hall. When electricity was "free" kibbutzniks had no incentive to save energy. People would leave their air conditioners running constantly. In the 1980s kibbutzim began to meter energy usage. Having kibbutzniks pay for energy usage required that kibbutzniks actually have personal money. Hence returned private accounts.

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The dining hall also was one of the first things to change. When food was "free," people had no incentive to take the appropriate amount. Every kibbutz dining hall would end the night with enormous amounts of extra food; often this food would be fed to the animals. Now 75 percent of kibbutz dining halls are pay as you go a la carte cafeterias.

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Kibbutzniks see their neighbors more than most other Israelis, but they have begun to live private lives. Several kibbutz dining halls are no longer even open for three meals a day. Kibbutz families have DVD players and the internet like other Israeli families. Group activities are much less well attended than they were in the past. Instead of all-night discussions of cosmic issues, kibbutz general meetings are now infrequently scheduled.

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Perhaps the most dramatic example of how kibbutzim have abandoned the principle of equality is the implementation of differential salaries. A manager of a factory would now receive a much larger personal allowance than a factory worker, or agricultural worker.

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In the 1970s nearly all kibbutzim abandoned Children's Societies in favor of the traditional nuclear family. The reasons were many. Some kibbutzim believed that communal life for children led to psychological problems; some said that giving up one's children was too great a sacrifice for parents. The children themselves said that they remembered being fearful at night in the dark, away from their parents.

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Although kibbutzim abandoned the Children's Societies, kibbutz children do not grow up like their non-kibbutz peers. Many kibbutzim give children their own apartments when they turn sixteen. Other kibbutzim still have Children's Societies for youngsters who are older than twelve.

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Since the late 1970s kibbutzim have lost prestige in the eyes of non-kibbutz Israelis. The image of the kibbutznik has gone from self-sacrificing pioneer and guardian of the state's borders to that of a non-mainstream, idealistic subsidy consumer.

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There are several causes of the loss of prestige. One reason is that as Israel?s Mizrahi (also called ?Sephardic?) and religious populations have become larger and more assertive. For various reasons, kibbutzim never attracted large numbers of non-Ashkenazi Jews. By the 1980s, when virtually every other institution in Israel was fully integrated between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, kibbutzim stood out as Ashkenazi bastions. Kibbutzim, nearly all of which are secular also have become less respected as Israel has become more religious. In the 1980s kibbutzim were not allowed to participate in the absorption of Ethiopian Jews, as there were fears that the secularism of the kibbutzim would influence the religiosity of the Ethiopian immigrants.

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Kibbutz industrialization in the 1960s led to an increase in the kibbutz standard of living, but that increase in the standard of living meant an end to the self-sacrifice which regular Israelis had so admired. In his 1977 campaign for prime minister, Menachem Begin attacked kibbutzniks as ?millionaires with swimming pools? and was rewarded with the right's first ever electoral victory.

Related Topics:
Standard of living - Menachem Begin

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Finally, the need for government bailouts harmed the kibbutz image. In the 1970s and early 1980s Israel experienced hyperinflation? up to 400 percent per year. During that period kibbutzim borrowed excessively with the expectation that inflation would virtually eliminate their debts. When the Israeli government implemented an austerity program that brought inflation down to 20 percent per year kibbutzim were left with billions in debt that they could not repay. The ensuing bail-out by the government, banks, and profitable kibbutzim cost the kibbutz movement considerable respect.

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Prospects

The late 1980s and early 1990s were a bad time for the kibbutz movement as the kibbutz population aged and shrank, yet there were still areas of vibrancy in the movement. In that time, several new kibbutzim were founded in the Arava, in far southern Israel, near Eilat. One notable Arava kibbutz is Kibbutz Samar, though this particular kibbutz was founded in 1976 http://www.ardom.co.il/heilot/samar/samar.htm

Related Topics:
Arava - Kibbutz Samar

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Kibbutz Samar does not call itself an anarchist kibbutz, but in effect that is what it is. Instead of members being assigned to various tasks, members work where they feel they are needed, without any formal assignment. Kibbutz Samar still also has an open cash box. Kibbutz Samar maintains a trust among members that is seldom seen in other kibbutzim.

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Kibbutzniks no longer expect to transform the rest of Israel, or the globe, into one large collectivist project, but they have not given up on changing the world in smaller ways. Kibbutzniks are prominent in Israel's environmental movement. Some kibbutzim try to generate all their power through solar cells. Kibbutzniks are also prominent among Israel's peace activists.

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Beginning in 2003 the kibbutz population began to rebound from its long decline. The increase in population that began that year has continued to the present. Most kibbutzim that are seeing an increase in population are reformed kibbutzim.

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While some kibbutzim lose money, kibbutzim are an integral part of Israel's defense apparatus, particularly those kibbutzim which lie in border areas. It is likely that the Israeli government will continue to support them for military as well as political and historical reasons. Kibbutzniks defend subsidies by pointing out that every developed nation subsidizes its agriculture.

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Legacy

In his history of Palestine under the British Mandate, One Palestine, Complete, the post-Zionist "new historian" Tom Segev wrote of the kibbutz movement:

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:The kibbutz was an original social creation, yet always a marginal phenomenon. By the end of the 1920s no more than 4,000 people, children included, lived on some thirty kibbutzim, and they amounted to a mere 2.5 percent of Palestine?s Jewish population. The most important service the kibbutzim provided to the Jewish national struggle was military, not economic or social. They were guardians of Zionist land, and their patterns of settlement would to a great extent determine the country?s borders. The kibbutzim also had a powerful effect on the Zionist self-image. (Segev, 252)

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Segev?s view might be cynical, but he is correct that the story of Tel Aviv, which, coincidentally, was founded in the same year as Degania, would be more representative of the yishuv experience than the stories of the kibbutzim.

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Kibbutzim have been criticized for falling short of living up to their own ideals. Most kibbutzim are not self-sufficient and have to employ non-kibbutz members as farm workers (or later factory workers). What was particularly controversial was the employment of Arab labourers while excluding them from the possibility of joining the Kibbutz as full members.

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In more recent decades, kibbutzim have been criticized for abandoning socialist principles and instead attempting to be competitors in the market. Kibbutz Shamir owns an optical products company that is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Numerous kibbutzim have moved away from farming and instead developed parts of their property for commercial and industrial purposes, building shopping malls and factories on kibbutz land that serve and employ non kibbutz members while the kibbutz retains a profit from land rentals or sales. Conversely, kibbutzim which have not engaged in this sort of development have been criticized for becoming dependent on state subsidies to survive.

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Nonetheless, kibbutzniks played a role in yishuv society and then Israeli society, far out of proportion to their population. From Moshe Dayan to Ehud Barak, kibbutzniks have served Israel in positions of leadership. David Ben Gurion lived most of his life in Tel Aviv, but Kibbutz Sde Boker, in the Negev, was his spiritual home.

Related Topics:
Moshe Dayan - Ehud Barak - David Ben Gurion - Sde Boker

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Kibbutzim also contributed greatly to the growing Hebrew culture movement. The poet Rachel rhapsodized on the landscape from viewpoints from various Galilee kibbutzim in the 1920s and 1930s. The kibbutz dream of "making the desert bloom" became part of the Israeli dream as well.

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Likewise, kibbutzim disproportionately affect the views that the rest of the world has of Israel and the image Israelis have of their country. One reason socialists were very supportive of Israel in its first two decades of existence was that kibbutzim represented socialism in its purest form. Books and movies about Israel, from James Michener's The Source to Leon Uris' Exodus, all feature kibbutzniks prominently. The stereotypical image of the kibbutznik—tanned and wearing a "zimple" sunhat with a fold-down brim—became the stereotypical image of all Israelis, even being used in anti-Zionist propaganda. As for the image Israelis have of themselves, once, when asked what he proposed doing about the thousands of Israelis who did not have enough food to eat, Prime Minister Ehud Barak proposed that Israelis simply open their pantries to the hungry, as if Israel were one big kibbutz.

Related Topics:
James Michener - The Source - Leon Uris - Exodus

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Since there are still over 250 kibbutzim in Israel, it may be premature to address the legacy of the kibbutz movement. However, although there may be hundreds of entities in Israel calling themselves kibbutzim, the collectivist impulse is gone. As the largest secular collectivist movement ever, kibbutzim arguably prove that the model itself is economically sustainable, while the ideological fervor is not.

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