This one wild and precious life!!: Kibbutz 101

I thought since many of you may not have any idea what I mean when I talk about the “kibbutz”, I’d give you a little bit of an explanation. Kibbutzim (the plural of kibbutz) started when the first waves of immigration came to Israel from Europe. Most European Jews who came to Israel were intellectuals, and fervent Zionists—those who believed in the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. But when they came to Israel, there was no opportunity for them to be lawyers, merchants or doctors the way they had been in Europe—and they needed to settle the country and grow food for them to live on. So they founded communal settlements—agricultural communities. The ideal of the kibbutz was (and still is) each person gives according to his ability and receives in accordance with his need. So they all did their parts, and gradually, they grew to larger communities, and a kibbutz movement with this philosophy was formed. The children lived together in houses by age group where they were all cared for by care givers (members of the kibbutz), giving both parents the ability to work outside the home to provide for a living. The kitchens, laundry and other services were also communal—they ate their meals in the dining hall, truly building a sense of community. They didn’t even own their work clothing—they simply threw it into the communal laundry and got a clean set of the correct size.

By the time Yoram grew up, the movement had changed a lot. His kibbutz “Hatzerim” (a few miles outside the city of Beersheba) was quite successful—they had a huge factory for drip irrigation, and were doing well financially. But the communal principals remained—the head of the factory “earned” as much as the person working in the kitchen or laundry—possibly less, because if the factory head had only 1 child and the kitchen worked had 3, the kitchen worker would be entitled to a larger budget, because his need was greater. Hatzerim is a medium-sized kibbutz—it has about 400 members which means about 1000 people live here. Yoram grew up sleeping in a children’s house; he went to elementary school on the kibbutz and high school in the area. But they still threw their laundry into the kibbutz laundry room chutes (now the clothing was theirs—marked with an iron-on number) and found it clean in their “cubby” at the end of the week. They ate all their meals in the dining hall, which really meant that everyone knew everyone else—for better or worse. (But mostly better). By the time we lived here for a year 20 years ago, children were in the children’s houses or schools from 7-4:30 6 days a week, but slept at home; most meals were eaten in the dining hall, but the homes were a little bigger, so many would either take food from the dining hall but eat at home or take ingredients and cook at home for the evening meal. And that’s the way it is more or less today. Many people work outside the kibbutz, but their salaries go to the kibbutz, and they have the same budget as everyone else, again according to their need. So the principles are still there, just a little adjusted for modern times. But that’s why it’s so much fun to come back—the sense of community is so tight—especially for Yoram. And you can still go to the dining hall on Friday night for the Sabbath meal, and run into dozens if not more of people that you grew up with—went to school with, worked with, lived all your life with. You catch up a bit, go for coffee in the "club”, and catch up on the last 20 years. When we lived here for a year, I worked in Shiri’s children’s house with the 1-2 year olds. It has been awesome for me to see the people now that had kids in the house then—their kids are mostly getting out of the army and about to start school, work or are traveling the world before settling down. Or the people with kids in the other girls’ classes, many of whom are now grandparents!

Here are a few photos of various places on the kibbutz: