Jan 4, 2010
It’s a question I often get asked when I talk about this research project and my experiences on Shamir. Most people have heard of kibbutzim (the plural form of kibbutz) and have a vague, general idea about them, perhaps from someone they met who lived on one, as communal farms in Israel.
Wikipedia offers a decent basic definition and a detailed overview of the history of the kibbutz movement and recent changes. (Appropriately enough, it is collectively written—Wikipedia is to encyclopedias as kibbutzim are to private communities and farms, although Wikipedia is in ascendence where kibbutzim are on the decline.)
Henry Near, a kibbutznik and author of the definitive two-volume history of The Kibbutz Movement, offers several useful definitions in his book’s Glossary:
kibbutz (community): (a) federation of communal groups (plugot, havurot, etc.) and/or settlements (e.g. the Kibbutz Me’uhad). (b) Large communal settlement, combining agriculture with industry, as opposed to the small entirely agricultural kvutza. (c) Comprehensive name for communal settlement.
kvutza (group): (a) Communal working group, whose members contracted to work for a defined time or objective. (b) Small, permanently settled, purely agricultural communal group.
The founders of Degania (later renamed “Degania Alef” to distinguish it from neighbouring Degania Bet) called their community a kvutza. In the early years of the movement, there was great debate about whether these communities were better suited — philosophically, economically, socially — to remain small units (ie, kvutza) or grow to be a full-blown kibbutz (some of which count more than 1,000 members).
More recently, with the turn of the millennium, many kibbutzim have voted to reduce the communal obligations of members—paying for food in the dining hall, letting members own their own houses and apartments, and permitting “differential salaries” (ie, market value wages rather than the original socialist concept of “From each according to their ability to each according to their need”).
These changes strained the legal definition of what constitutes a kibbutz. In 2002, a national Committee for the Classification of Kibbutzim (known as the Ben-Rafael Committee for its chairperson) met and eventually (after often contentious debates) mapped out a new three-part definition for which communities can call themselves a kibbutz (a designation that has legal and tax advantages in Israel).
There can now be 1) Kibbutz Shitufi — aka “traditional” or “collective” kibbutzim — which maintain much of the original cooperative system of collective ownership and redistribution of resources; 2) Kibbutz Mitkhadesh — aka “renewing” or “innovative” or (often pejoratively) “privatized” kibbutzim — which have instituted privatization of apartments, differential salaries, and/or distribution of shares of the means of production; and 3) Urban Kibbutzim — a relatively new phenomenon, of the last 30 years, in which small groups of usually young people live cooperatively in urban settings and tend to be employed in fields of social work and education with a shared vision of social justice.
Some observers say this new flexible definition of “kibbutz” will allow the communities to evolve and thrive, on their own terms, in the 21st century. Other critics told me that these changes have emptied the original concept of meaning and turned it into a “zombie category”. Part of the goal in my travels, research and writing is to explore what value and values the concept of the kibbutz maintains in 2010.
Jan 2, 2010
It would be hard to imagine someone who knew as little about the place they were going to as I did when I left for Israel on a snowy Monday in late October, 1988. I had vague associations with famous place names—Jerusalem, Nazareth, Jericho—from Sunday school catechisms and sword-and-sandal film epics. I had a rough idea of recent troubles (the first Intifada had recently begun) from newspaper headlines. And I’d attended a primer or two about Israel as I made my kibbutz arrangements through the Jewish Community Centre in Ottawa. But I don’t remember even travelling with a guidebook when I set off.
“Was anyone ever so young?” Joan Didion once wrote about her own naive arrival to New York City. “I am here to tell that someone was.”
Recently, I re-read the two journals I kept while living in Israel. I’ve packed them wherever I’ve moved since but hadn’t cracked their spines in years. I hoped I might find in them mature musings and observations about kibbutz life or the geopolitics of Israel/Palestine. Instead, the pages are mostly filled with the angsty self-absorption of a typical 20-nothing North American male. Still, there are moments of truth—about myself, if nothing else—amidst the scribblings. It’s worth sharing some to remember what it was like to be young and on the road for the first time.
Monday October 24, 1988
So this is it. Here I am, sitting at Gate 80 of Mirabel airport, waiting to board an El Al 747 that will spirit me a thousand miles away to Israel. My father and brother have said their goodbyes and departed, so I am no officially alone. And lonely.
I have that familiar light-headed feeling and stomach churning that signals my nervousness but it is no worse than if I were going on a first date or waiting for a job interview or preparing to write an exam. I guess the reality of my situation still has not hit me full force. It probably won’t until I step off the airplane and realize I am in a foreign land surrounded by foreign people; a stranger in a strange land.
…
I ran into a smidgen of difficulty checking in at the airport when one of the El Al security persons, while flipping through my address book, happened upon Kyle’s entry as “Massoud Falsometer”. It took several minutes of awkward discussion for me to explain that the name was a joke, my friend was from Quebec and not the Middle East, and that he had not given me any “packages” to take on the trip. Midway through my bumbling explanation, the security person, a sturdy, serious Jewish fellow, wondered aloud, “What kind of joke is that?” to which I just shrugged and smiled anxiously.
On my trip last summer, I was reminded that customs and security in Israel remain just as thorough, rigid and humourless. Probably more so. When I arrived at customs in Ben Gurion Airport, a female agent maybe half my age grilled me about why I was visiting Israel, who I was planning to see, how long I intended to stay, etc. I nervously rattled off the names of some of the contacts in Tel Aviv and Haifa I planned to interview.
“Do you have any Arab friends? Will you be meeting any Arabs?” she asked.
“Have you ever eaten any Arab food?” I imagined the line of interrogation continuing. “Do you ever use Arabic numerals?” But I kept my mouth shut.
In the end, my Canadian passport caused the most suspicion. Swine flu panic was heating up and a number of Canadian cases—and fatalities—had made headlines .around the world. Still, she let me in. I was on the road again and travelling through the Promised Land.
Jan 1, 2010
Just over twenty years ago, I took my tuition money for second-year university and bought a plane ticket to Israel instead. I’d heard about a kind of communal farm called a “kibbutz” that welcomed international volunteers—often wander-lost souls like myself—on working vacations. Once in Israel, I was assigned to Kibbutz Shamir, in northern Galilee, on the slopes of the Golan Heights. I only intended to stay for a month or two and then continue travelling. I ended up working there for nearly seven months—and was sorely tempted by an offer of a longer term job.
I returned to Canada profoundly changed by my experiences on Kibbutz Shamir. I tried to write about my time there in poetry, fiction and drama, but never felt satisfied with these creative expressions. My life and studies and work in Canada took over, and I never returned to Israel as I had intended.
A year or so ago, I decided to google “Kibbutz Shamir” out of curiosity—I had lost touch with friends from my time there—and was startled to see that many of the documents that came up were about how, in 2005, the lens-making factory (where I had often worked) had made its debut on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
A kibbutz founded by Romanian socialists, part of a communal movement often described as “the purest form of socialism in the western world”, was getting wealthy in the free market. Shamir had obviously changed since I’d left. So, too, I was soon to discover, had much of the movement.
Last June, I had the opportunity for a two-week return visit to Shamir and Israel and a chance to talk to members of Kibbutz Shamir and many experts in the field of kibbutz studies. I hope to return again some time soon for a longer visit.
This new year—2010—marks the centenary (okay, some people mark it as 2009, others as 2011, but more on that later) of Israel’s kibbutz system, with the founding of Degania, the original kibbutz, along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, where the River Jordan flows south, by a dozen young Jewish pioneers. There will be many celebrations to mark this anniversary and much soul-searching amongst critics and kibbutz members who fear that the movement has lost its ideals and its positive influence on the state of Israel.
This blog is just one small, highly subjective attempt to chart some of these debates about the most influential communal movement in the world, as well as an opportunity (kindly supported by a fellowship at the Centre for Co-operative and Community-Based Economy here at the University of Victoria) for me to share research, conversations and memories as I reflect on what I experienced on Kibbutz Shamir and what I’m continuing to learn about the kibbutz movement. In a more general way, it will also be about our shared search for utopia—for a better place—in an often divided world.
Please join me on this journey of discovery and share your own thoughts and comments at the different stops along the way.
—David Leach
