The First Week

Day 1

Neve Shalom/Wahad al-Salam

It’s been a hectic first week of my research trip in Israel: I arrived with Jerry, my research assistant and cultural guide, Sunday just before noon. We grabbed a rental car and drove to Neve Shalom/Wahat-al Salam, where we stayed for four nights at a guest house at this unique community. After dropping our bags, we got an introduction to Neve Shalom/Wahad al-Salam from Abdessalam Najjar, one of the earliest residents. The community was founded about 30 years ago, just off the Tel-Aviv/Jerusalem highway, as a place where Arabs and Jews could live in peaceful co-existence, while also running programs that encourage dialogue to help others do the same. Today, there is a long waitlist of other Arab and Jewish residents of Israel keen to take up residence. (Space on the limited amount of land, donated in a covenant by the nearby Latrun Monastery, is the main issue holding back expansion.) Abdesssalam admitted that his community is far from typical in his country; in fact, the government likes to use Neve Shalom in its feel-good press relations while giving no financial or other support to the community itself. Rather, it’s something of an isolated island of middle-class professionals who have managed to find a way of living with the conflict that divides this country while not ignoring it. It’s also a beautiful neighbourhood in an idyllic rural setting where the coastal plains start to rise toward the hills of Jerusalem—a soothing setting to sleep off some jet-lag while still running around and doing interviews.

Kibbutz Revadim

Next, we had tea at Kibbutz Revadim (where Jerry’s sister, a ceramics artist lives), and spoke with Uri Pinkerfeld, a founder as well as an activist who acts to protect Palestinian olive groves from destruction by settlers. He told us about the early history of the kibbutz, which was originally near Jerusalem but captured and then relocated during and after the War of 1948, and the process of privatization that it underwent, after careful consideration by its members. This “change” was less traumatic at Revadim, which wasn’t in as deep financial crisis as many kibbutzim.

Review: Inventing Our Life

If you see just one movie about the kibbutz, it ought to be Inventing Our Life: Kibbutz—The Fourth Generation. (I'm not saying you should just watch one kibbutz movie; in fact, I've seen five in the past few months, with two more on the way—but I realize everyone may not be as obsessive about the history and future of the kibbutz as I am.) 

The catch? The film isn’t finished yet.

Toby Appleton, the producer/director, kindly mailed me a “rough cut” of her 82-minute documentary, while she continues to drum up funding to complete post-production. But “rough cut” doesn’t do justice to the diamond she has created. Inventing Our Life  is a remarkably compelling work of documentary filmmaking that deserves the widest possible audience.

All of the other kibbutz documentaries I’ve seen so far have been informative, even provocative and well worth watching. However, they tend to focus on an individual community and then contrast its pioneering days with its present struggles. Appleton’s film takes a wider view and examines the kibbutz movement as a key thread within the greater tapestry of the history of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. And yet for all this long view, the film still speaks with an intimacy that strikes an emotional chord in the viewer, thanks to the anecdotes and opinions of the kibbutzniks she interviews. It’s a fine balance between macro-narrative and micro-narrative that Inventing Our Life walks masterfully.

After about 10 minutes of introductory interviews, the storyline loops back to the anti-semitic pogroms in Russia that motivated the Zionist movement and the early founders of the kibbutz to settle Palestine, illustrated by classic footage from a 1920s Zionist propaganda film. Later, members of Kibbutz Sasa, founded by Hashomair Hatzair youth-group pioneers from the U.S., describe their kibbutz-style training camp in New Jersey and then how stories from the Holocaust only steeled their determination to found a Jewish state. Even here, the documentary doesn’t shy from potential controversy:

“This was an Arab village,” one  of the founders of Sasa recalls of their arrival to the kibbutz site in 1949. “We had serious qualms about coming to an abandoned village where people’s lives had been uprooted.”

The rest of the film carefully walks viewers through the kibbutz heyday in the 1950s and 1960s (and the vital role of kibbutz soldiers in the Six Day War), while acknowledging that a failure to help assimilate the waves of Jewish immigrants from Arab countries in the years after Independence helped lead to the kibbutz movement’s isolation from the rest of Israeli society, especially after the right-wing and anti-kibbutz Likud came to power in 1977.

The rise of a more capitalist-inclined “me generation” in the 70s and 80s is charted, as well as the financial shock of hyper-inflation and then burdensome debt loads in the mid-1980s, all of which resulted in an entire generation of young kibbutz-born members deciding not to return to their communal homes.

Here, the movie takes on even more complex tones as the issue of privatization (or “renewal”) is raised. We see the question from multiple perspectives, in multiple communities. If the movie has a main focus, it is on Kibbutz Ein Shemer, which is in the midst of hammering out a privatization proposal and debating it amongst its members. Still other kibbutzim appear throughout the film. Kibbutz Hulda, by contrast, has already closed down its dining hall and voted to privatize as a way to draw back young members. Kibbutz Sasa nearly came to the same decision but decided to remain resolutely communal; as one member says, paying different wages for different wages is a “red line” (or what another kibbutznik calls “the Jerusalem issue”) that can’t be crossed: “Anything else, then don’t call yourself a kibbutz.” 

Appleton also profiles members of “urban kibbutz” Tamuz in Beit Shemesh about their  revisioning of the original kibbutz ideals within an urban context focused on social justice and education. “We are somewhat like Degania in the first days of Degania but more anarchistic,” observes one Tamuz resident. “Cities are where most Israelis live,” says another,  “so cities are where real social change must occur.”

One of the strengths of the film is the insight of its articulate interview subjects, which include everyday kibbutzniks but also poets (Avraham Balaban, Eli Alon), philosophers (Avishai Margalit, Yochanon Grinspon) and storytellers (Rakefet Zohar). An ingenious narrative “trick” used by Appleton is to give people’s names, occupations and then indicate which generation of kibbutznik they are but not reveal, until the final few minutes of the film, whether they have remained on their kibbutz or not. Even the composition and lighting of these various interviews are beautifully rendered.

In the end, Inventing Our Life offers a bittersweet homage to the history and future of the kibbutz, one that balances lamentation for its lost ideals (“All dreamers end up on the floor,” says one of the poets) with the possibility for change and the vital importance of the entire project. “I think the kibbutz was the most interesting thing to happen in this country,” says Margalit, “because human beings lack serious experimentation in their lives. I think this was the most dramatic experiment and the most important one.”

Despite the breadth of my own research, I learned a great deal and was fascinated by the archival footage that Appleton unearthed. More impressively, both times I watched the film, I found myself tearing up with emotion by the end, as the “children of the children of the children of the dream” describe the importance of the kibbutz and its altruistic philosophy to their own sense of identity. I challenge any viewer not to be moved by this fine, fine work of documentary art.

And if there are any philanthropists out there who want to invest in an almost-finished doc, drop me a line and I’ll put you in touch with the director.

That’s all for now—I’m halfway to my goal of 100 blog posts to celebrate a 100 years of the kibbutz. More film reviews to come…

A Tale of Two Deganias

Privatization takes many forms on the kibbutz. I realized this fact last summer, when I visited both Degania A and Degania B—neighbouring communities since 1920, when Degania A "franchised" a decade after its own founding. Degania A is now a relatively wealthy community (thanks to a factory that makes diamond-cutters), and yet voted (controversially) to privatize in 2007. Degania B, I was told, is struggling economically—and yet has remained a traditional, communal kibbutz.

This contrast goes against the general trend that several experts had explained to me—that the remaining traditional kibbutzim are ones that can afford to stay communal, while the privatized (or "renewed") kibbutzim have been forced into these changes out of economic necessity. That theory, of course, is a reversal of the long-held assumption of critics of the kibbutz that these rural communities could afford to share everything because they had nothing much to share in the first place.

I stayed in the guest house on Degania B and had a chance to tour the kibbutz. The dining room, like most kibbutzim, charges for meals, and seemed a quiet, rather lifeless room when I had my breakfast. The members may not be millionaires, but the residents of Degania B still have one of the most beautiful swimming pools I've had the good fortune to do a few laps in—crystalline waters overlooking the Jordan River Valley. (I've sometimes daydreamed about doing a tour of Israel that would involve hop-scotching the length of the country, like the narrator in John Cheever's "The Swimmer", from one kibbutz pool to the next, and reading the mood of each community from the poolside conversations.) 

In the news today, I learned that because of the recent recession, the members of Degania B voted to sell a controlling interest in the kibbutz's medical products company in exchange for 100 million shekels (roughly $27 million Canadian). In economic terms, while they maintain a communal mode of consumption (in which everyone remains equal), they have been forced to privatize their means of production—a radical departure from the socialist vision of the founders. 

I hope to visit both communities again this summer, on the centenary of Degania A's founding, and observe more carefully the different paths taken by two of the earliest kibbutzim. And maybe do a few more laps in that wonderful pool.

The Kibbutz is Dead. Long Live the Kibbutz

Catching up on my Net-surfing, I read this analysis of the rise and fall and rise of the kibbutz movement in MarketWatch. It's part of the Wall Street Journal's digital network, so you can anticipate the bias. It's definitely typical of the kibbutz-as-failed-socialists-embrace-capitalism slant that J.J. Goldberg critiques. 


Still, it's filled with some interesting facts and financial stats and mentions Kibbutz Shamir (whose stock has doubled since I visited—I should have invested!). And the wide-ranging debate amongst commenters shows how passionate people can get about what the fate of the kibbutz means to the rest of society. 


And the article's conclusion actually lays off the throttle of its otherwise free-market cheerleader tone:

Now numbering 123,000, the new kibbutzniks are financially cautious and ideologically disillusioned, but even so, in an era of global economic perplexity, theirs may yet prove a model for a kinder, gentler, communitarian capitalism.

The Taxman Cometh

Sigh, it's that time of year again: tax time. (Actually, because I claim self-employment income as a freelance writer, I get a couple months breathing room here in Canada.) Apparently, that could mean some unexpectedly high tax bills for the 75% of kibbutzim that have voted to become mitkhadesh (aka, "innovating" or "privatized") rather than stay fully communal, according to a news article in today's Ha'aretz—upwards of 200 to 250 million shekels all together. (I just did the conversion: that's roughly 54 to 68 million U.S.) Here are details:

Starting in 2009, the kibbutzim were required to attach a statement detailing their financial management to their annual reports. Any kibbutz reporting its management met the description of a privatized kibbutz would then be taxed as such, and not as a collective. Taxes for a collective are calculated after dividing the income among all the members. Kibbutzim that did not pay taxes when operating collectively may be required to pay a pretty sum once privatized, a financial official from the kibbutz movement said.

It reminds me of stories I heard from kibbutzniks related to the debate about privatization. Before the big vote, many members get enticed by the estimates and prospects of more money in their pockets. After privatization goes through, they are less thrilled when that same money quickly disappears to pay for the various services (e.g., meals at the dining hall, electricity, upkeep, laundry, etc.) that were once provided for gratis by the kibbutz but that members—like the rest of us—now have to pay for out of their own budgets.

I wonder how many privatized kibbutzim will have second thoughts about the shinui (aka, The Change) when they get their tax bills this year. Maybe I could offer some tips on creative tax write-offs!  :)

More News on the Kibbutz Centenary

A reader and fellow blogger passed along links to two more stories about the centenary celebrations at Degania A that use the occasion to look back at how the kibbutz movement has changed. The Irish Times ran a report that ended with an interview with Israeli journalist Daniel Gavron, whose investigative travelogue The Kibbutz: Awakening from Utopia, while a decade old now, is a must-read for anyone interested in the contemporary history of the kibbutz movement:

"[T]he traditional kibbutz as we know it is coming to an end. Only about 70 of the 268 communities can still be accurately defined as a kibbutz, based on the principle of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need’,” Mr Gavron said. “Until the early 1980s, if you said ‘Israel’, the first word popping into people’s heads would have been ‘kibbutz’. Today , it is more likely to be ‘army’, ‘terror’ or ‘conflict’.”

A blog post by Israeli video journalist Yermi Brenner in The Huffington Post also reflects on the changes to the kibbutz system—this time from the perspective of a third-generation kibbutznik. He includes an interesting five-minute video report about the changes on Kibbutz Hatzor (his home, now privatized) and Kibbutz Be'eri (financially successful and still communal) that is well worth watching:



Thanks for the tips to Russell Cohen (aka, "Maskil"), whose excellent blog about "a secure, just Israel and a welcoming, pluralistic Judaism" is now on my radar, too.