David Dagan's three-part account of his time on Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek ends appropriately with an intriguing discussion of the Holocaust memorial on the kibbutz grounds—and how this intimate expression of personal grief feels more powerful than the better-known but...

Of course, I'm not the only international visitor obsessed with the legendary history, contemporary issues and uncertain future of the kibbutz, in this its centennial year. David Dagan, a Berlin-based American journalist, has started a series of blog posts for...

One of the great scenes in the soon-to-released documentary Keeping the Kibbutz is shot from a glider, high above the Huleh Valley, in which Uzi, one of the kibbutzniks from Kfar Giladi, has taken director and cameramen Ben Crosbie for a ride. The vistas of northern...

I seem to have jumped the gun with my recent visit to Israel. The Kibbutz Movement is just now inviting former volunteers to return to the country to help mark the centenary of Degania, the first kibbutz. They plan to organize an event, for this fall, to attract...

The kibbutz was, in its own way, a back-to-the-land movement, a way for disconnected young urbanites to renew their souls by reconnecting with the soil. So it shouldn't be a surprise that kibbutzim have become leaders in the areas of organic farming and environmental...

Or at least long life on a kibbutz. That was one of the bits of evidence mentioned in a recent article in The Guardian about how to "age successfully": Longitudinal studies of ageing in Israeli kibbutzim are particularly revealing of the importance of continuity....

I’m back in Victoria and starting to emerge from my jet-lag fog and feeling guilty about how far behind my blog is. I only got halfway through describing my trip, before our busy schedule (and erratic Internet access) kept me from updating. I probably should have...

 We packed up and drove west toward the coast above Akko. Destination: the “state” of Achzib. For more than 40 years, eccentric squatter Eli Avivi has lorded over this “micro-nation”, based around the abandoned mansion of an Arab sheik who fled after 1948. I had...

We stayed the night at Kibbtuz Revadim, so Jerry could visit with his sister, a sculptor on the kibbutz, before she flew to upstate New York and her summer job at an arts camp. Then we drove back toward Beit Shemish and stopped at Kibbutz Netiv HaLemad-he to visit...

We said goodbye to Mark and his wife, and drove a short distance to Kfar Aza, where we met Sofie Berzon—actually at a gas station café because her husband had just come home from a late shift. She is a photographer whom I had discovered on the web who has done some...