Kibbutzim: Will They Survive the New Israel?
Brenner, Gary & Mort, Jo-Ann
0N JANUARY 14, 1991, when the first Iraqi scuds hit Israel, one of the central commitments of the kibbutz— that children are best educated among their peers in the communal children's...
...We contend that for those who, like us, feel a sense of responsibility for this community, for the people living here and for its surroundings . . . there is no alternative but to reflect upon the complex reality and try to influence it with new concepts and ideas...
...Moreover, a subsidy is to be given to workers in relatively low-income brackets, where for every hour of overtime the community contributes fifteen shekels, which is paid directly to the member...
...Every question has ideological resonance: should lots be offered to children of the kibbutz who prefer not to join but want to live close to parents and siblings...
...Fifty-three years later, Hatzor's expansive fields are surrounded by suburban communities established during the last decade...
...Hatzor's founders are in their eighties...
...Some of this privatizing of social life happened without fanfare, but the consequences are serious, undermining the notion of a "pure" communal lifestyle and demonstrating that the kibbutz is not immune to the modern world...
...The traditional industrial crops (cotton, corn, potatoes, and so on) are either being replaced by more sophisticated, but also more labor-intensive, forms of agriculture, or the land is being turned over for its real estate value...
...During her wanderings off kibbutz, she trained as a master chef...
...Although this article tells the story of one kibbutz, it is not an atypical tale...
...Building on the accomplishments of the founding generations, we think it is possible to equip the kibbutzim with the economic and social tools to save the existing communities—to mark out a "third way" between collectivism and the market, combining justice with individual freedom and a higher standard of living...
...Meanwhile, the food has improved, due largely to the hiring of a master chef...
...But Israeli chefs are well paid, and although Noa wasn't asking for a fair-market rate, she wanted to earn a salary close to what she would get outside, a demand once unheard of on the kibbutz...
...Today, though, Hatzor's members keep track of their food allowance through a computerized system of cash registers...
...DISSENT / Summer 2000 n 69 KIBBUTZIM: WILL THEY SURVIVE THE NEW ISRAEL...
...In addition to Solbar, a brass and aluminum die casting plant at Hatzor manufactures automotive, irrigation, and construction parts...
...Twentyeight year-old Noa—born on Hatzor—was weighing whether to become a Hatzor member...
...enjoy a meal and not just fulfill a social commitment...
...2) We are interested in a society where individuals enjoy a reasonable standard of living, characterized by a uniquely high quality of life...
...Reform I The founders of the kibbutz, and all those who reject the radical changes taking place over the last decade, argue that there is no connection between the recent economic successes and the years of re-thinking...
...But new industrial start-ups take as much as seven years to turn a profit (if at all...
...Hatzor still celebrates weddings and bar/ bat mitzvahs communally, which many kibbutzim no longer do...
...She and her husband, in effect, rent their apartment...
...The new model fails to address some of the more fundamental disparities, resulting, for example, from members holding private property outside the kibbutz...
...After the war, there was no turning back...
...The day after the vote was like all other days...
...An added value to these initiatives is that they are being led by individuals (many of them women) who previously directed their skills and talents inward to the community, and who now offer important services while earning money for the kibbutz...
...the kibbutz will turn into a home emptied of all inhabitants and a vision emptied of all content...
...This "model for change" in Hatzor was conceived, debated, revised, voted upon, rejected, and finally approved during the years 19942000...
...Hatzor has opened its gates to its neighbors by KIBBUTZIM: WILL THEY SURVIVE THE NEW ISRAEL...
...Social factors led to a privatizing of everyday life, and this has economic consequences...
...Long-running ideological debates about whether or not to abolish communal child rearing were decided by Saddam's scud attack...
...This further allocation is made possible by extensive privatization of goods that were once distributed freely, that is, food, laundry, certain alternative medicines, higher education, electricity, and so on...
...Suddenly, member-workers were forced to negotiate with their peers, their neighbors, the caretakers for their children, even their own family members...
...However, the purpose of the model and the differential sphere was not to create income differences but to establish categorically that for the kibbutz to survive work must have an economic value and not just a social one...
...In 1946, these Socialist-Zionists were allocated land on what would have been a border post had the 1947 UN partition plan been realized, located twenty-seven miles south of Tel Aviv and four miles east of the then-nonexistent port of Ashdod...
...Undoubtedly, some businesses were paying "low" salaries in order to show higher profits to the kibbutz...
...Income Distribution The new model, which received 64 percent of the total votes the second time around, has three income components: equal distribution, seniority, and differential salaries...
...The Kibbutz differentiates between goods such as health, education, and welfare, which are guaranteed under the principle of "mutual responsibility" and never questioned in the new model, and additional subsidies for the individual and the family (including children, based on age...
...Recently, Jonathan joined his father on one of his many business trips marketing products for Solbar, the industrial mainstay of the kibbutz's economy...
...By 1999, the four had become two, and then the left-leaning KAF merged with the United Kibbutz Movement to form a single group called—appropriately enough in this post-ideological age—simply "The Kibbutz Movement...
...We .. . have no intention of undermining the rights and the life style of the founding members as a result of these changes...
...In spite of this grim reality, we believe that the kibbutz can be remodeled for a new era...
...Whether Noa and her husband will actually become members of Hatzor is still uncertain...
...Only ten members are under forty...
...No celebrations...
...fourfifths of the original KAF kibbutzim now require payment for meals in the dining hall...
...Two opposing camps evolved within the kibbutz movement, and in Hatzor, appropriately calling themselves "Kibbutz Tamid" (forever) and "Kibbutz Atid" (future...
...On the other hand, health care for the aged is guaranteed, while current workers are rebuilding a pension fund that was decimated in the crisis of the 1980s, and these factors tend to even out real income...
...from a production to a business orientation...
...Suddenly, the kibbutz economy, already in deep trouble because of the agricultural and inflationary crises of the 1980s, had a new financial burden...
...More than fifty of the two hundred members of working age are employed outside the kibbutz...
...Perhaps it's not strange that after all the debates about the right way to raise children, the deciding push came from outside the community...
...Ninety percent of the budget of the members is then divided, x shekels for each member (equal for all) plus y shekels for each child, depending upon age...
...Whether they become members of Hatzor depends on what Hatzor can offer them...
...Hired by the kibbutz to put her talents to use, she improved the quality of food dramatically...
...This last feature, overtime wages paid to the individual, was the only difference between the model that was originally rejected and the one finally approved...
...The religious kibbutzim have remained outside...
...But in the 1980s, an economic crisis hit the entire kibbutz movement, brought about by high inflation after the war in Lebanon, the Likud government's policy of squeezing the kibbutzim, and the worldwide collapse of the cotton market...
...During this period, the communal budget was limited to the bare essentials, with little or no surplus for investments in housing and an improved standard of living—this at a time when the overall Israeli economy was prospering...
...In the 1950s, members of the Swiss and French Hashomer Hatzair Youth Movement joined, followed by young people from North Africa, Iran, and Iraq...
...One can become a member any time after serving in the army, so people under twenty (also spouses who choose not to be members) are not included in these numbers...
...2) The individual will be paid a salary in accordance with the market value of his/her labor, without creating extreme economic differences...
...In the last five years, about thirty young adults under twenty-eight years old have returned to the kibbutz to live, but have not (yet) joined...
...In time, a gap in perceptions and experiences created ever greater frictions between the opposing camps...
...This system has greatly reduced food waste...
...The Atid camp claims that there is no future for the kibbutz without radical transformation...
...The Economy Until the mid-1970s, Hatzor was an economically stable kibbutz, with a relatively profitable industry and productive agricultural branches...
...Consultants from outside the kibbutz helped managers determine salaries based upon the Israeli workplace, and also assisted in the mediation process...
...With the principles agreed upon, the task of creating new social infrastructures while running the businesses became the mission of a few...
...The Hatzor "model" is, like all incremental changes, a compromise...
...Today, the membership has dropped to three hundred, with a total population of nearly six hundred...
...Private radios and electric tea pots were once a sign of ideological deviation, yet today members choose among a dozen television stations made available through the large satellite dish that sits on the ground near the swimming pool...
...In the 1960s and 1970s, North American and West European volunteers came to study Hebrew on the kibbutz and some, including one of the authors, stayed...
...The demographics of the kibbutzim over 64 n DISSENT / Summer 2000 the last fifteen years demonstrate the depth of the problem...
...Aided by consultants (another alien term) coming from academia and industry, Hatzor adopted in 1990 a set of "Guiding Principles for Economic Recovery": 1) The purpose of our economic activity is to create the resources needed to fulfill our social goals...
...The new model requires that businesses (industry, agriculture, and services) first pay fair salaries...
...The transition from public to private funds, while members continue to look to the community for support, may result in deficit spending and/or social unrest...
...However, in Hatzor there is no call to close it, as has happened on many other kibbutzim...
...GARY BRENNER, originally from Los Angeles, joined Kibbutz Hatzor in 1971, marrying someone from a founding family of Hatzor, and raising his own family there...
...The crisis of the kibbutz today derives from the inescapable interaction , of its communal philosophy with the outside world—most pointedly, with the materialism of its neighbors (most of the world, after all...
...The Economic Council (directors of the different kibbutz businesses with communal representatives) has been forewarned that additional investment will be required to complete the housing construction begun three years ago...
...In 1983, there were 267 kibbutzim in Israel with a total population of 115,000...
...Hatzor's founding members came from prestate Israel, North America, and Bulgaria...
...Hatzor This is the story of Kibbutz Hatzor's struggle to attain that goal...
...JO-ANN MORT lives in New York and writes extensively on Israeli, Mideast, and Jewish issues...
...In the past, such arrangements could only be "temporary...
...This increased to 125,000 in 1990 and dropped back to 114,000 by 1996...
...No emotional breakdowns...
...Young people were voting with their feet against kibbutz ideals...
...Long after the vote, they would mutter, "I didn't vote for this...
...They want to travel, they want nice things (to the point of conspicuous consumption), and they are beginning to understand that to achieve these "needs" they will have to increase their income significantly...
...Today, kibbutzim are privatizing on a large scale, giving up on many of their utopian ideals...
...From businesses to social services, health to education, there is no other method of evaluation...
...The process of economic recovery for Hatzor took nearly a decade...
...Given that this manifesto was prepared in 1989 and Hatzor only began to see the benefits of its efforts in 1995-1996, it would be fair to conclude that the idea, rooted in a clear understanding of changing historical realities, preceded the deed...
...5) We are interested in a society in which there is an agreed upon, but limited, degree of collectivism, equality, mutual responsibility, and social security...
...now homes are listed in the individual members' name...
...Reform II The next stage in Hatzor, which actually ran parallel to much of what we've just discussed, addressed the core kibbutz ideology...
...THE MOST serious outcries of discontent were heard when members learned how their work was being valued...
...If the kibbutz can be retooled so that it is economically viable, and if it can transform itself from a communist to a social democratic community, it might once again become a home for its young people and a model for a just society, in Israel and elsewhere in the world...
...Although Hatzor continues to plow its fields, agriculture today cannot be considered a guaranteed source of income, nor can it contribute to the growing expectations of the community it is meant to support...
...Yaron, a son of the kibbutz, now fifty years old and deeply committed to the "old kibbutz values," argued bitterly with Jonathan, especially because Gary was strongly identified with the reconDISSENT / Summer 2000 n 67 KIBBUTZIM: WILL THEY SURVIVE THE NEW ISRAEL...
...A committee was created, appropriately called "Workers' Representatives," to assist members in improving their salary levels...
...Her membership in Hashomer Hatzair, the Kibbutz Artzi youth movement, introduced her to democratic socialism...
...offering private preschool education, a kindergarten for autistic children, a therapeutic riding school for children with physical and emotional disabilities, a convalescent and nursing home, a disco built in a former grain silo, and Friday night ballroom dancing...
...the majority went about their daily lives...
...The world has evolved in ways the early pioneers could never have imagined...
...they work, play, and communicate on personal computers...
...And a fight is brewing with the Land Authority: To whom do the profits really belong—to the owners of the land (the state) or to those who plowed the land and fed the people for several generations...
...also attracting the younger generation...
...The Workers Representatives Committee is headed by one of the key opponents of change in Hatzor, which is both a sign of acceptance and a guarantee of workers' rights (for those who might question the integrity of the reform leaders...
...The grand experiment has failed—or it is entering a new era...
...The Economic Council is also responsible (since 1998) for rebuilding the members' pension fund...
...During his high school years, Gary's son Jonathan worked in the turkey farm, assisting Yaron, a veteran paratrooper, in taking four-week-old chicks and nurturing them into full-sized birds, ready to be delivered for slaughter...
...For the higher salaried members, income tax is as high as 80 percent...
...THE EVOLUTION of Hatzor's communal dining room, a fundamental kibbutz institution, illustrates today's changes...
...In many ways it falls short of achieving even minimal reformist expectations...
...Solbar Hatzor, a limited company (a concept once antithetical to kibbutz ideology), crushes soybeans bought mainly from the United States, extracts oil, and makes soybean meal for animal feed, refined oil, protein concentrates for industrial food processing and, more recently, 66 n DISSENT / Summer 2000 soy isoflavones for dietary supplements...
...On the other hand, reaching a consensus that the existing model is no longer possible, making a break from the maxim From each according to . . . , and accepting the market as the 68 n DISSENT / Summer 2000 KIBBUTZIM: WILL THEY SURVIVE THE NEW ISRAEL...
...The next largest age group is between forty and fifty-five...
...perhaps the eventual acceptance of the reform was the result of a long-term psychological adjustment...
...People now can DISSENT / Summer 2000 n 65 KIBBUTZIM: WILL THEY SURVIVE THE NEW ISRAEL...
...A member of Kibbutz Hatzor, he has served as the secretary-general (maskir) of the kibbutz, international emissary for the Kibbutz Artzi Movement, and is currently marketing director of Solbar...
...from the existing model in which there is a lot of free time and little money for the members, to a model where there is less free time and more money—looking toward an end where there is more time and more money...
...The three components are calculated together and distributed in monthly allotments...
...No protests...
...Their economic viability should not be at the expense of the kibbutz worker, not to speak of hired workers from outside the kibbutz...
...that is, 20 years x 4 x 25 2,000 shekels per month...
...From the venerable janitor (hatzran is a kibbutz term that has a much deeper connotation) to the aging farmers in the failing agricultural branches, disappointment and even bitterness became a central motif of the public debate...
...Rather, it is the recognition of the importance of the economic needs . . . to ending the crisis, and ensuring the ability of the productive/ business sector to be competitive . . . . 5) The first stage for what is called here the conversion of the social unit relates to the conceptual sphere and the following transformations: from an agricultural culture to an industrial one...
...And Ashdod, founded in 1956, with most inhabitants coming from Morocco, is a thriving city, its population dramatically increased by the recent arrival of immigrants from the former Soviet Union...
...Similarly, the idea that one's house was owned by the kibbutz is giving way...
...From Hong Kong to Manila to Sydney/Melbourne and back home via Thailand, a very different aspect of kibbutz life came into view...
...perhaps it was simply the end of a process of attrition from years of debate...
...If this is . . . the future to which we are destined, our sense of belonging to this place is to be questioned...
...2) The necessary condition for the survival of the kibbutz as a social entity is its ability to become, once again, a viable economic entity...
...Their years worked are credited to them, whereas the younger generations will see less income from this component...
...Another company, which produces high-tech boxes for hotel safes, is about to be spun-off in strategic cooperation with a much larger company in Israel...
...On kibbutz after kibbutz, the grand experiment of collective child rearing, which had been gradually disappearing over the last several decades, collapsed completely as children camped out on their parents' floors, sofas, cots, and bunk-beds, in tiny two-room houses built for couples living alone...
...4) This conversion is not intended to undermine the principles of the kibbutz, such as co-operation, mutual responsibility and support, equality, and so on...
...The first component consists in those values and services that are equally distributed by the community, based on family size...
...But the foundations of the model are amendable, open to incremental changes as a result of trial and error...
...Kibbutz children and parents would not be separated for the sake of a lost ideal...
...An anecdote sheds some light on the inner feelings behind these frictions...
...Parents swooped up their children and took them "home," to be by their side in a secured room...
...They, like thousands of twentysomething Israelis, are in between travels to India, Australia, South America, and New York...
...There are a number of kibbutzim -along the coastal plane of Israel actually designated "real estate kibbutzim...
...She is a frequent visitor to Hatzor...
...However, "objective" outsiders didn't always succeed in tempering hurt feelings and the damaged self-image of those who had always done what the kibbutz expected of them...
...3) We want an open and attractive society, combining the old kibbutz features with the advantages of the system around us...
...The kibbutzim had to industrialize...
...Loyal to his farm boss and sensitive to his feelings, Jonathan asked his father (while they were dining in an open-air Bangkok restaurant), "How do you expect Yaron, who travels from one part of the turkey farm to another at the rate you travel from Tel Aviv to Frankfurt or Singapore, ever to understand why you consider change to be not only inevitable, but essential for kibbutz survival...
...In 1993, following a summer of informal discussions by a self-chosen group of members in their thirties and forties, these principles were presented to an electrified assembly on a traditionally secular Yom Kippur eve: The economic, social, and demographic crisis plaguing kibbutz society for nearly ten years also underscores an identity crisis and loss of direction...
...The basic assumption of the former is that the traditional kibbutz way of life can and should be sustained, but throughout the years of debate inside Hatzor—and other kibbutzim engaged in similar processes—this camp failed to offer alternative models that could either stem membership loss or aid in financial recovery, the two central problems...
...Managers had to explain themselves, and more often than not make salary adjustments...
...Hatzor's population peaked in 1984, with 360 members...
...After several months of committee meetings, she now receives a respectable salary as a hired chef living on the kibbutz...
...4) We want a society that is limited in its responsibility for the individual to areas such as education, health, and communal welfare services...
...from a culture of amateur organization to professional organization . . . . 6) The second stage of adapting the system is a translation of ideas into action— changing the culture of work in the kibbutz: habits, quality of work, rules and norms, doctrines of management, and systems design...
...Others are teachers or nurses, collectively represented by Histadrut-affiliated trade unions...
...Finally, the most dramatic feature of the final vote was the lack of drama...
...70 n DISSENT / Summer 2000...
...From 1994 to 1998, there was a net decrease of approximately 2.5 percent...
...subjects ranging from the socialist nature of the Soviet state to the "correct" size of the community...
...In the 1980s, kibbutz living standards fell, particularly in comparison to the socio-economic groups with which members most closely identified in the broader Israeli society...
...The third component combines differential salaries with progressive taxes intended to close the income gap...
...Seniority points are currently designed to benefit not only the retired veterans but members in their fifties and sixties, still working but hard-pressed to make the transition to higher paying jobs in the workplace...
...The distribution of subsidies is determined by the actual budget of the community, the amount of money available from salaries, social security, tax benefits, dividend payments from businesses, and so on, after the "mutual responsibility" goods are guaranteed...
...Out of the 300 members, roughly one third, 114, are over the age of 65...
...struction effort...
...basis for salaries represents a historical point of no return...
...She married someone from outside who holds an important position in a Hatzor-owned factory...
...The kibbutz was founded in 1936 as the third settlement of the left-wing Kibbutz Artzi Federation (KAF...
...Each kibbutz member is granted four points per year of seniority, valued right now at 25 shekels per point...
...They already know how to negotiate with employers...
...An essay of that time, written by one of the kibbutz movement's leading thinkers, graphically described the transition from "open to blocked horizons...
...The first principle is that salaries are determined by the market and not by kibbutz values or standards...
...It should be noted that veterans of retirement age receive an alternative allowance to the third (salary) component, comparable to the median salary in the kibbutz...
...We are aware of the difficulties and dangers ahead, but many of us believe that without the readiness to . . . struggle with fundamental questions...
...Ironically, in the spirit of the ideological founders, the younger generation of managers forced themselves and their peers to face up to reality, arguing into the late hours of the night that only a dramatic reconstruction would save the kibbutz from itself...
...Inevitably, discrepancies will arise, as in all communities and states...
...The composite income is issued as an allowance—members still don't receive their work salaries directly...
...The factory first turned a profit in 1995, almost five years after the kibbutz had initiated a strategic partnership and sold minority shares to a German company in order to make Solbar competitive on the world market...
...Three principles shaped the reform: (1) The individual will be directly responsible for his/her income and that of his/her family...
...and (3) The individual will be able to hold private property within a scheme of things that will maintain a relative degree of equality...
...3) The way out of the crisis and into economic prosperity is dependent upon the understanding, agreement, and participation of the kibbutz members in converting the social unit of yesterday into a more efficient and profitmaking tool for the productive branches—the businesses of the kibbutz...
...Shabbatthe Friday night dinner—is the one time the hall is full, with extended families coming together for the meal...
...The process was painful, because it implied a rejection of ideas that were very deeply rooted, at a time when many of the pioneers were still alive...
...In recent years, the individual purchase of cars challenged the notion of common ownership, but almost no one tried to stop the purchases, so the cars proliferated...
...Each of these is evaluated and calculated separately, and then the three are combined...
...The guaranteed allowance of retirees is higher than their current kibbutz budget, although they now receive less than those of working age...
...There are a handful of kibbutzim that are maintaining most of the historic framework of kibbutz collectivism, but for various—and unique—reasons, these few are financially solvent, even wealthy...
...The population was declining and might soon decline much faster: the median age for kibbutz members in 1998 was fiftythree years, up from fifty-one in 1994...
...Perhaps it made the difference...
...The second component is seniority...
...In communities that once debated whether a single phone in the communal dining room was sufficient for a settlement of hundreds, kibbutz members walk around with cell phones, sometimes one per family member...
...It took the kibbutz until 1987 to find a new project that was both available and affordable...
...These figures exclude the sixteen religious kibbutzim of the Ha'Dati movement...
...Where scarcity and ideology once combined to enforce a lack of interest in personal wealth, today's kibbutzniks (not only the younger generation) have expectations similar to those of their upper-middle-class peers in the United States, Western Europe, and the rest of Israel...
...kibbutz members seemed to be waiting to see how their daily lives would change, for better or for worse...
...The transition to differential salaries in the kibbutz businesses and services was instituted two years ago, well before this had a bearing on actual allowances...
...Hatzor decided to search for a new industry in the early 1980s, and also undertook a painstaking and prolonged process of defining the goals of its existing enterprises...
...The future of the kibbutz is in industry, the more high-tech the better, and in providing services to the surrounding communities (health, education, entertainment...
...In 1948, Israel could boast of four kibbutz movements, with ideological differences on KIBBUTZIM: WILL THEY SURVIVE THE NEW ISRAEL...
...Kibbutz as an idea—and as a reality—ceased to be a source of inspiration, nor did it attract its own younger generation...
...The separation of the business sector from the communal services, the transition from a production to a business orientation, the establishment of a board of directors for each of the economic branches, the granting of authority and autonomy to managers (together with the demand that they "manage without excuses")— all this has made a difference...
...But they are wrong...
...Houses would need to be enlarged, families accommodated...
...Keeping open a huge communal kitchen and dining room barely used for week-night dinners is a drain on the kibbutz economy...
...The kibbutz voted for the manifesto in 1990, though many people had difficulty accepting the tremendous cultural shift...
...In any case, the new model was put into effect in March 2000, to be reviewed again at the end of the fiscal year...
...Today, some kibbutzim, Hatzor among them, are struggling with issues like property taxes, inheritance, and the community's right of first refusal...
...There is no tax on the minimum wage (which is also higher than in the rest of Israel...
...0N JANUARY 14, 1991, when the first Iraqi scuds hit Israel, one of the central commitments of the kibbutz— that children are best educated among their peers in the communal children's house— shattered within a few hours...
...We propose that the kibbutz initiate a discussion on the following explicit goals: 1) We want a kibbutz that comes closer to prevalent needs and values...
...Therefore, principle two was to institute a rather draconian progressive tax on salaries, similar to that in Scandinavian societies...
...From April to October there is an outdoor cafe that sustains the old communal spirit, albeit for only a few hours a day...
Vol. 47 • July 2000 • No. 3
