Here is a little video news story from WeJew.com that takes a more optimistic view of the changes to the kibbutz movement, with images from the pioneer times and interviews with contemporary kibbutzniks. Life on a "privatized kibbutz", it seems, still offers a greater...

Well, I did my talk about the lessons on kibbutz life yesterday, and I think it went well. (Maybe that’s just the energy drink I had beforehand speaking!) It was reasonably well-attended with familiar and new faces. People seemed to be focused and attentive on my...

Today, I was polishing up my presentation for Thursday, titled "Look Back to Galilee: What a Century of Kibbutz Life Can Teach Canadians about Co-operation and Community," when I took a break, surfed through some YouTube kibbutz videos and came across this gem: "The...

A friend and colleague passed along a fascinating news story, from two years ago, about the development of subdivisions on Israel’s kibbutzim. These are new neighbourhoods, with lots or houses sold to non-kibbutzniks, attached to the kibbutz. The owners have access to...

I'd never heard the term "self-governing socialism" (in contrast to the "state socialism" of China or the former USSR) before, but recently stumbled across a blog devoted to discussing the idea and its implementation. The kibbutz, of course, is a classic example of...

Here's a cool video about a solar farm recently installed at Kibbutz Yavne, a religious kibbutz south of Tel Aviv. Many kibbutzim, especially in the Negev Desert region of Israel, have invested in green technologies, such as alternative energy and water-conserving...

When I visited Kibbutz Shamir last June, I was surprised to learn that the kibbutz no longer takes international volunteers, that it hadn't for five or six years. The reasons were largely economic: since privatization, much of the work formerly done by volunteers is...