A 'Third Way" to Save the Kibbutz?: Reply
Brenner, Gary & Mort, Jo-Ann
THE HISTORICAL lesson of the kibbutz in pre-state Israel lies in the deep pragmatism of its early leaders, who were committed to understanding young people and so created a medium for them to...
...FWALLY, Rosner refuses to acknowledge the most critical link in the sad story of the kibbutzim's dilemma: the significant changes in Israeli society...
...Had the editors of Dissent proposed an economic plan similar to that of the "young managers" of Hatzor, they would probably be condemned as unreconstructed communists...
...He has served as secretary-general of the kibbutz...
...Jo-ANN MORT lives in New York and writes extensively on Israeli, Mideast, and Jewish issues...
...Of course, the economic starting point for the changes varies from kibbutz to kibbutz, and so statistics don't tell the whole story...
...If they don't, they will fail to respond to the desires of the next generation...
...Indeed, in recent interviews with us, the current Artzi leadership clearly stated its support for "pluralism" in the movement, including the differential salary model, as has the Takam leadership in recent newspaper interviews...
...Rosner is well aware of the preponderance of outside incomes even in the kibbutzim that purport to oppose change...
...unfortunately, they are not yet working together...
...We believe that eventually most, if not all, kibbutzim will move toward more privatization and independent decision making for their members...
...For good or for bad, the overall social crisis in the kibbutz today is a mirror of the broader Israeli society...
...These managers also dreamed the dream...
...The movement has never been able to address this source of inequality...
...And the number choosing differential salaries continues to increase...
...But this juxtaposition of "egalitarian" and "non-egalitarian" gives a distorted picture of the kibbutz as it is and has been...
...Halperin also points out that, contrary to Rosner's cheery numbers regarding a handful of kibbutz factories, today the kibbutzim's contribution to the gross natonal product is much below what it was in the 1950s...
...He must use the past tense because, in the last five years, the new leaders of Takam and Kibbutz Artzi (the old "right" and "left" kibbutz movements, now merging into one) have clearly rejected constructing red lines as each kibbutz struggles to save its community in its own way...
...Only after that came the development and imposition of an ideology of strict communism, which has proven to be outmoded in today's global economy...
...92 n DISSENT / Fall 2000 Frankly, as we continue our journalistic research on the changes in the kibbutzim, we are more stunned by the depth of the crisis than when we wrote our original article...
...But many of the opponents of change in the kibbutz, who prefer building walls around dangerously marginal agrarian settlements, show no respect for comrades who are still fighting the good fight...
...Each of the youths interviewed said that today kibbutz life is "not normal...
...Although it is still early to say decisively that the changes we suggest will save the kibbutz enterprise, we don't agree with Rosner that the facts belie our conclusion...
...many of them might have preferred to be born into a generation of revolutionary sacrifice, draining the swamps while singing songs of freedom and equality...
...The failure of socialist intellectuals (there aren't all that many in Israel today) has left these managers to rely on their own resources...
...We deliberately used lower case letters: this is the third way of isolated communities, far from the center, modestly but earnestly trying to overcome a decade of failure, to reconstruct their own social and economic life as best they can...
...But they grew up in a different world, or they joined up at the wrong time...
...It is disappointing that respected leaders like Menachem Rosner are unable to come to terms with new realities, clinging instead to a lost world...
...If, after ten to fifteen years of painstaking deliberation, 22 percent of them have voted for some kind of differential salary system, intellectual integrity requires admitting that the kibbutz may have moved beyond a totally egalitarian economy...
...The ideology of the revolutionary Zionist pioneers cannot serve the needs of third and fourth generation Israelis...
...GARY BRENNER is the marketing director of Solbar, an industry of Kibbutz Hatzor...
...Most of them are in their fifties...
...Rosner's statement that the "kibbutz movements strongly opposed the introduction of the fully market value, non-egalitarian income" is especially telling (our italics...
...Let us start with the "stubborn struggle...
...Even in Kibbutz Gan Shmuel, a classic ARGUMENTS Artzi kibbutz—and one that, on paper, opposes change in keeping with Rosner's philosophy— young people (handpicked by the leadership) told us recently that they want change along the lines of Hatzor...
...The members are working more...
...The kibbutzim still deliver a disproportionate amount of young people to the army's officer corps (over 40 percent in elite air force units are from the kibbutzim, now around 2 percent of the population...
...Indeed, the young kibbutznikim who, though questioning the current model of the kibbutz, still believe in the national project in its original form, hearten us...
...THE HISTORICAL lesson of the kibbutz in pre-state Israel lies in the deep pragmatism of its early leaders, who were committed to understanding young people and so created a medium for them to lead lives relevant to their personal needs and to the society around them...
...It can still be an example to others: a viable economy, a small-scale social democracy, and a community of good and caring people providing excellent educational, health, and welfare benefits— a community that will, perhaps, prove attractive to a younger generation...
...Where there was once a socialist-Zionist consensus, today, there is none...
...If committed young people on a wealthy kibbutz are expressing such opinions, we believe that the social crisis of the kibbutzim seeps deep into the fabric even of the few prosperous settlements...
...The opponents of change deplore "managerial views" and practices that in fact empower all the members of the kibbutz to manage the budget, understand the importance of cash flow, and join in the annual meeting to approve the balance sheet (which is now in the black...
...only in the kibbutzim would they be called "young," a fact that reflects the flight of young people from the kibbutz and the demographic crisis this has brought about...
...0 NE of Rosner's more offensive comments refers to those who "have been leading, as the case of Hatzor illustrates, for over six years, a stubborn struggle to introduce 'reforms' that reflect their managerial views and ensure their privileges...
...We, however, say no to that option...
...This income has been part of kibbutz life for decades, coming either from individual members' outside families or from entrepreneurial work on the side...
...The third way, in the context of the kibbutz, is far from the Third Way of Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroeder...
...On the edge of the cliff, looking into the precipice, the choice was between a rapid descent, a heroic end, on the one hand, and an effort to "do" kibbutz in a different way, a "third" way, on the other...
...Rosner can claim that the traditional kibbutz model works only because a handful (yes, a handful—from 20 to 40) of the 265 kibbutzim are financially solvent and therefore perhaps several years away from the salary model...
...Yet, it's irrefutable that independent kibbutz leaders throughout the country are coming to the same conclusions and searching for similar answers...
...This is true for Hatzor, Kfar Ruppin, and Gesher Haziv, to name a few...
...No amount of sociological research or stubborn idealism can discount the truly profound crisis that the kibbutzim face today...
...They tried to maintain the old system, which almost brought the community into bankruptcy...
...The commitment to social justice can and should be the same, but its practical implementation has to be different in this century...
...DISSENT / Fall 2000...
...We wonder if this is as terrible a regression from egalitarian ideals as Rosner implies...
...The kibbutzim can either face the crisis head on or they can pull up the drawbridge and maintain their own sense of purity against the raging, but very human, messiness of a transforming Israel...
...That pragmatic medium was the kibbutz, set up in an era of scarcity and nationbuilding...
...The kibbutz may be doomed to becoming a museum, but we hope not...
...The opponents of change consider an 80 percent progressive tax, as at Hatzor, where only 50 percent of the community budget is privatized, and where property will (eventually) be distributed equally based on seniorDISSENT / Fall 2000 • 93 ARGUMENTS ity, as a means to "ensure privileges...
...There were and are no textbooks about how to do it...
...There have indeed been "long distance runners" in the struggle for social justice and a decent economy, who rightfully won the respect of friend and foe alike...
...The entire pie is growing...
...They want differential salaries and more independence...
...Rosner and his comrades may prefer to have a few rich kibbutzim survive at the expense of the entire experiment and hundreds of other, poorer, collective settlements...
...Ariel Halperin, who just completed a seven-year term as the trustee of the joint commission established by the kibbutzim, the banks, and the Israeli government to resolve the debt crisis, told us that "Wherever a kibbutz went to differential system of wages, there was almost immediate change for the good...
Vol. 47 • September 2000 • No. 4
