The Kibbutz: The Risk of Enduring

For one hundred years, the kibbutz was an undisputed model of an agricultural and industrial collective that implemented sharing, equality and direct democracy. Since the mid-1980s, however, the majority of the kibbutzim have undergone far-reaching changes (FRC). Differential salaries, privatization of property rights on apartments, or absorbing non-members as residents or “partial” members penetrate numerous settlements. This book tackles the question whether all this means that the kibbutz is gone. To answer this question, it investigates the dynamics of the new kibbutz reality, in this post-FRC era when some kibbutzim go as far as adopting all or nearly all FRCs possible while others still assert their loyalty to the “old regime. What comes out from this investigation definitely sets kibbutzim in the category of what Beck calls a “risk society”. The risk concerns the fact that for kibbutzniks, to remain a kibbutz or to step out from what a kibbutz still represents is a matter of choice that can be decided at any moment. The primary cost of this freedom is that kibbutzniks undergo a change of position vis-à-vis the society. While in the past, kibbutzim felt they represent a segment of the society that is appreciated for its contribution to national and societal challenges, today, they come to realize that in the eyes of the public, they are just “like anyone else” who pursues its own well-being. On the other hand, the pluralism that reigns today in many a kibbutz was studied, under the light of the Harvardian model with a research carried out from 2008 to 2010. This research focused on fourteen kibbutzim - some more “collective” and others more innovative. The investigation reveals many new actors and a reality that is far from reaching a point of “tranquility”. The depiction obtained of kibbutz reality is anything but homogeneous and unified or clearly dichotomous and divided. Though, the singularity of the kibbutz, even when it adopts the most extreme FRCs, consists in its retaining attachment to two basic codes - mutual responsibility (‘arevut hadadit’) and decision by consensus. What kibbutzim still have in common is that they depend on the wishes and hopes of kibbutzniks themselves. The general picture that comes out is not that of an “exemplary non-failure” as Martin Buber described it more than two generations ago. The kibbutz now appears as a non-failure that has apparently lost something of its “exemplarity”. Its main achievement is that it is still with us. Only the future will say for how long.