The Kibbutz: Awakening from Utopia

The kibbutz, or agricultural and light industrial commune, was one of Israel's chief instruments of state-building. Initiated in 1910 as a socialist experiment in cooperative action, it provided work for newcomers, promoted their settlement in inland areas of Palestine, and afforded a sense of purpose and solidarity. At the time of statehood, Israel's national borders were largely determined by the location of the most distant kibbutzim, and, writes journalist Daniel Gavron, the kibbutz movement "held a unique position of prestige, providing many of the nation's best military commanders, as well as a third of its government."

Over the last half century, Gavron argues, and especially since the 1970s, the kibbutzim have lost some of their utopian sensibility. For example, where before each kibbutz worker held an equal share of the commune's holdings, there are now differentials in income, and decades of inflation and borrowing compromised the financial integrity of several of the most important communities. Many Israelis consider kibbutzim to be wonderful places for children and the elderly, but not for career-minded workers in the prime of life.

All that notwithstanding, the kibbutz continues to play an important role in Israeli life, Gavron writes, producing some 40 percent of the country's crops and about 10 percent of its manufactured goods. His study of this remarkable, and in the main successful, experiment is a useful contribution to Israeli history. --Gregory McNamee