Page 8 - C.A.L.L. #22 - Fall 2003

A New Kibbutz Movement?
Crises and privatisation are still ravaging the
traditional kibbutzim, once heralded by Buber as
‘the experiment that did not fail’. Meanwhile, new
models of kibbutz are emerging, and tentatively
forming a network – the Circle of (Communal)
Groups – between themselves. Is this the beginning
of a new kibbutz movement?
One model is the ‘urban kibbutz’, such as Tamuz in
Bet Shemesh. In their own words: “Kibbutz Tamuz
is an urban kibbutz, a small Jewish community, and
like the traditional kibbutz, Tamuz is a collective.
Its 33 members function as a single economic unit,
expressing the socialist ideals of equality and
cooperation, ideas and praxis. However, unlike the
traditional kibbutz, we are located in an urban
environment, keeping us in tune with what is
happening in society around us.” (see
http://www.tamuz.org.il/english/about.html)
The urban kibbutz title is also used by Migvan in
Sderot (www.migvan.org.il), Bet Yisrael in
Jerusalem (www.reut.org.il), and Reshit in
Jerusalem. However, when considering the Circle of
(Communal) Groups network, this terminology is
misleading, since neither the words ‘urban’ nor
‘kibbutz’ best describe many of the other groups
which have been founded in recent years…
8
James Grant-Rosenhead, Kvutsat Yovel
Another model is that of the ‘Tnuat Bogrim’
(graduate movement) groups of the youth
movement Noar Oved ve’Lomed (NOAL for short).
Such new NOAL communities tend to define
themselves as ‘educational’ or ‘societal’, deliberately
placing the emphasis on the projects which they
take on in tackling the ills of modern society, rather
than on their geographical locations. Indeed, whilst
most of their members work in various educational
and social projects in urban centres, Ravid, Eshbal
(www.eshbal.org.il) and Hanaton are physically
located in green, northern, rural settings, rather
than within towns. Even more confusing
terminologically, is that others of these urban /
social / educational communities are not using the
word kibbutz, preferring instead to refer to
themselves as ‘kvutza’, connoting their smallness
and intimacy.
The crises and privatisation of the traditional
kibbutz framework in the 1980’s meant that NOAL
graduates were no longer attracted to kibbutz on
the one hand (historically they built many) and the
kibbutzim could no longer afford to send their best
emissaries to work for the youth movement on the
other hand. In response to this decline, a new
stream developed within the youth movement during
the 1990’s, producing many small, intimate,
consensus-driven, anarcho-socialist groups of
graduates. The new NOAL graduates of the 1990’s
decided to cut out the kibbutz intermediary from
their traditional symbiosis. They retained their
small, intimate group life as separate new adult
communities after they had graduated from the
youth movement and the army. Instead of
integrating into a traditional kibbutz, they took on
responsibilities within the youth movement which
were formerly undertaken by the kibbutz
emissaries. At first, many Socialist Zionists saw this
as an historical betrayal by NOAL, abandoning the
kibbutz. One decade later however, it is already
becoming clear that this change in methodology has
revitalised NOAL as the primary creative force
behind dozens of small new kibbutzim / kvutzot /
communes all over Israel.