For the first time in more than 30 years, waiting lists for Israeli kibbutzim are getting longer. The kibbutz movement, which represents most of Israel’s 279 kibbutzim across the country, has established a “twinning service” for others to find a suitable kibbutz. to feel at home.
The number of other people looking to move to a kibbutz, which has larger spaces and more communal amenities, began to increase as the COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictions intensified in 2020. But even if life has (mainly) returned to normal, this trend is still strong, according to the Kibbutz movement.
Ayelet Harris, who heads the kibbutz motion’s integration services, told The Times of Israel in an interview that the motion had about “500 new members lining up to join. “
“Many of them are families, but also single at other stages of their lives. Some have a connection to kibyetz life: they grew up in a kibyetz and moved, but most of them didn’t,” Harris said.
Shira and Dov Isikovitz, parents of five young people from north-central Israel, are typical of those who have to move.
“After years of living in Hadera and not feeling a special connection to the place, COVID made us start thinking about the things that were vital to us and our family. This made thinking about big adjustments more intense and urgent, and it also seemed more realistic to leave the center of the country,” Shira said.
“Decades ago, we volunteered at kibyetzim and dreamed of being part of this kind of network, but it didn’t seem practical,” he added.
They had sent one of their children to a school focused on farming and saw how he thrived there, he said. kibbutz could be like.
They were so animated that they asked to join, but the kibyetz government told them they did not believe the option was entirely fair and Ma’ale Gilboa, a devout kibyetz located about five kilometers (3. 1 miles) west of Beit She’an. .
“We made a stopover in Ma’ale Gilboa, and we felt it could be our home. It was very varied religiously, in a way that was quite a bit for Israel. It was a position where you could be who you were looking for. “being, and the other people were incredibly welcoming,” Shira said.
“There was a great sense of unity that we didn’t feel at all in Hadera. So we went ahead and transplanted the family, adding our 7,9,15- and 18-year-olds to two old apartments on the kibbutz that we were given to live in. This summer, our kids run in the barns,” he says. Continued.
Dov and Shira are still adapting to the new location and living in a kibyetz. Dov is a plumber by training; Shira is a medical masseuse. Or they had a full eBook for visitors in and around Hadera, but they are reluctant to drive about an hour in each direction and want Ma’ale Gilboa to be the center of their lives.
They are now applying to create more consumer lists and Shira intends to retrain as a nurse.
The circle of relatives is still in their trial year as a resident of the kibbutz. But Dov said that “you already know that we need to complete the members of the kibbutz, not just to live here. “
This would mean being elected through existing members, and in the now not unusual context of the more privatized kibbutz, giving 10% of their salaries to the kibbutz’s central fund in exchange for having a say in the decisions the kibbutz makes for the future.
Over the past two years, Shira said, Ma’ale Gilboa has taken in many other people in their fifties and families with children in their forties.
“We don’t regret it. Honestly, we don’t miss anything in Hadera. We haven’t reached paradise, but it’s great,” Dov said.
From her position of overseeing the kibbutz movement as a whole and leading the absorption of new kibbutz members into her local Mevo Hama kibbutz, Harris believes covid-19 lockdown periods have been a major catalyst for movement from the center of the country to the periphery. Kibbutzim.
“COVID has given those other people the opportunity to paint from home and think about moving with their careers to live somewhere else, to find a network of paintings they can be a part of. They want to be away from the cities and they look at the kibbutz all over the country,” he said.
The death of the kibbutz ideal is regularly announced. There were times when the movement, founded in the early days of colonization from socialist ideology, was perceived as disconnected and obsolete, a position in which socialists of the old era can simply live their days. The investment crisis of the 1980s seemed to drive the nails into the coffin of what had been a global feast of networked life.
But increasingly, there is a new power in the lives of kibbutzes throughout Israel. And that power goes both ways.
The kibbutzim themselves have become more open to new members and more flexible in their mode of operation. Many have chosen to privatize and adopt new work tactics. The focus is on the community, which means varies from kibbutzim to kibbutzim.
But, as Harris noted, “it’s not about deciding on the best, the smartest, or the richest, but looking for those who need true partners in the life of kibyetz, to immerse themselves in the community. “
An example of this online immersion is Kibbutz Lavi, a kibbutz in the Galilee, where new citizens have been welcomed through a partnership with Kinneret, a regional charity that works with young adults with autism. (The charity has also partnered with other kibbutzim. )
In collaboration with Kibyetz Lavi for the past 3 years, the charity has converted kibyetz houses into two hostels, Beit Rimon and Beit Zayit, for about 15 young men with dati leumi (modern Orthodox) autism. They are citizens rather than members of the kibyetz, yet they participate in its devout and cultural life. Several of them paint in the kibyetz hotel or furniture factory, and are fully incorporated as members of the varied kibyetz community.
Naftali Wolfson, 22, one of the first young adults to move into Kibbutz Lavi’s Beit Rimon hostel. Before that, he lived with his circle of relatives in the center of the country and attended a specialized high school. year of national service at a school in Tiberias. And next year, he plans to start running on the kibbutz itself, with education provided through other kibbutz members.
“Living on the kibbutz allowed me to be much more independent than when I lived with my parents. The other people on the kibbutz invite us to eat; we were in the rabbi’s space last Friday night. It often comes with delicious cakes for all of us before Shabbat. It is very easy to meet the other people on the kibbutz and they are very friendly. We celebrated Shabbat and all the holidays with the other people on the kibbutz, and I even did magic for the young people on the kibbutz above. Purim,” he told The Times of Israel.
The procedure for applying for a club on the kibbutz varies by kibbutz. But in general, longtime kibbutzniks will live on the kibbutz for about a year before their entire club is put to a vote.
That year, they will be informed about the realities of kibbutz networking life and have the opportunity to demonstrate their commitment and possible contribution to the kibbutz. There will also be interviews and even mental profiles.
Once admitted as members, they have equivalent voting rights when it comes to kibbutz-related decisions. There are some diversifications from kibbutz to kibbutz when it comes to dating between new members and existing successful businesses. But the ultimate goal is total equivalence between members.
In some cases, it is conceivable to settle in a kibyetz without having a full member: living as a long-term resident as part of the network but without the club rights in the kibyetz.
Overall, Harris noted, existing members are willing to welcome newcomers and bring more people into their communities. But there are tensions.
The land of the kibbutz belongs to the state, and the land is given to the new members to build their houses. And there can be big differences between those who arrive with cash and are building now, and veterans whose homes are aging and were built at a time when resources were more limited.
Although the maximum of kibbutzim has some kind of industry on the floor (agriculture, factories, hotels, generation corporations, even publicly traded corporations), they constitute only a limited component of the kibbutz’s income. Today, most members make a living through the kibbutz, coming with their own business or career.
When choosing a member, a part of any source of income is grouped with the kibbutz, and a constant amount of money goes to each member each month, depending on the duration and wishes of the family.
In 2014, the kibbutz movement conducted a survey to better understand attitudes in Israel towards kibbutzim and found that 70% of the general public supports land use for kibbutzim, and the maximum (60%) also believed that their overall contribution to society was declining.
Fast forward to 2020 and all trends point to the expansion of kibbutzim. Internal studies of the kibbutzim movement indicate that 96. 8% of kibbutzim have an open door for new members. Between 2015 and 2020, records recommend that only about 40% of kibbutzim admitted more than 20 new families, with most developing slowly or not developing at all. As of 2020, ongoing surveys recommend that at least 65% of kibbutzim across the country are absorbing at least 20 or more new families as members.
Research conducted in the first wave of COVID-19 found that the philosophy and values inherent in kibbutzim made them resilient to the demanding situations posed by the pandemic.
“They contribute to the resilience of the network around them,” according to Gil Lin, deputy secretary-general of the Kibbutz Movement and a member of Mishmar Ha’Emek, a kibbutz in Israel’s northern Jezreel Valley.
Kibbutz Ketura, in the southern Arava Desert near Eilat, is a clever example of the evolution of kibbutzim. Founded in 1973, it has about 165 members; the oldest members are largely from the United States and the youngest are more commonly ethnic Israelis.
Having grown from two to three families a year for a while, that number has doubled since the pandemic and newly arrived families in Israel.
The kibyetz has a thriving date orchard that was part of its original agricultural activity. But now he also manages an educational tourism allowance and an accounting firm. Some of its members work at the regional school, in local high-tech enterprises, renewable energy assignments, and as psychologists and actors, but they also organize other activities in the kibyetz, such as kickboxing classes, crafts, and brewing.
Urban kibbutzim (Kibbutz Ironi) also have a trend. There are just over a hundred in Israel, comprising some 2,000 members. The concept was tried and failed in the early twentieth century, and then in the 1970s. But more recently, he turns to have discovered his position and a way to resolve the social disorders of disadvantaged communities. For example, the municipality of Haifa asked members of a youth organization to identify an urban kibbutz in the community of Hadar to paint with children at risk.
But the concept has a more flexible social configuration than the classic kibyetz. In Migvan in Sderot, of one hundred members of the urban kibyetz, only about nine common funds. Others are components of the network but do not live completely in the network.
Last year, in a blog with The Times of Israel, Asaf Shimoni invited other people he believed were excluded from existing kibbutzes to join him in creating a new kibbutz network in Arava. It was aimed at seniors and new immigrants, and they were given 20 other people willing to devote themselves to this application alone.
The task was not started for various reasons. ” It wasn’t because other people weren’t interested in being part of developing a kibbutz from scratch. And you may have done a lot more to locate an even larger startup community. But I needed the municipality’s and they didn’t seem to need the plan,” Shimoni told The Times of Israel.
Life on the kibbutz is for everyone.
Keren Tinman married Kibyetz Be’erot Yitzhak in central Israel, who has so far resisted the general trend of kibyetz toward privatization and greater individuality. Her husband, Shir Amir, grew up in kibyetz. They began their lives together after their houpa on the kibyetz lawn rose above the crowd via a tractor adapted to the process. Most of the friends Amir grew up with returned for the wedding but chose to live elsewhere.
Tinman and Amir live on the kibbutz in a 20-square-meter room and particularly less expensive than anything else they can locate in the Gush Dan area. They also get subsidized food at the kibbutz’s supermarket.
Tinman works as an architect at Kfar Saba, while Amir studies two days a week and works on the kibbutz two days a week. But the couple already know that long-term life on the kibbutz is not for them.
“There is no personal space. The other kibyetz people feel that they can access each and every place, even in our house. This is not the same as always, but every time we faint, we close the door. “to make sure no one comes in. Ideologically, kibyetz is very classic and you have to percentage of each and every one of the components of your life. I feel that other people here lack ambition. There is no incentive to do more because every single thing is percentage,” Tinman told The Times of Israel.
The couple plans to leave for Jerusalem year.
Tinman and Amir’s reaction is possibly typical of young couples. Most of those who move are families with children. In 2000, some 117,000 more people lived on kibbutz, according to Israeli government figures. In 2021, said Nir Meir of the kibbutz movement, they had a total population that is the largest of another 182,000 people.
According to personal studies of the Kibbutz Movement that he shared with The Times of Israel, of those embarking on the one-year trial era presented through kibbutzes, only about 90% “succeed” and integrate into the kibbutz’s cultural life.
These days, there is education for either party in the partnership to ensure the good fortune of the relationship. And the absorption of those new members has a positive and dynamic effect on the kibbutz: about 60% of respondents who the addition of new members have taken a step forward in the social facet of kibbutz life.
If there was a time when it seemed that the days of the kibbutz were numbered and that they were going to disappear with the last hardliners, those days seem to be behind us.
Supporting The Times of Israel is not a transaction for an online service, like subscribing to Netflix. The ToI network is for other people like you who care about a common good: making sure that Israel’s balanced and guilty policy remains to be held loose from tax to millions of other people around the world.
Of course, we will remove all classified ads from your page and have access to exceptional content from the network. But your help gives you something deeper than that: the pride of joining something that really matters.
That’s why we introduced The Times of Israel ten years ago, to provide discerning readers like you with a detailed policy of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other media outlets, we have not established a paywall. But because the journalism we do is expensive, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become vital to help our paintings join the Times of Israel community.
For just $6 a month, you can help our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel WITHOUT ADVERTISING, as well as access exclusive content only for members of the Times of Israel community.
Thank you, David Horovitz, founding editor of The Times of Israel.