Mine õige kibbutzi!

1.
http://www.kibbutzvolunteer.com/information.html#What%20is%20a%20kibbutz?

What is a kibbutz?
A kibbutz is a communal agricultural settlement in Israel, usually in a rural location. The "members" of the kibbutz are known as kibbutzniks. All property on the kibbutz is owned communally and all income generated is shared by the kibbutz. Some kibbutzim also have factories that produce anything from plastics to sprinkler parts. Meals are prepared in a communal kitchen and eaten in a communal dining room. The plural of kibbutz is kibbutzim.

2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz
3.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/kibbutz.html
4.
http://www.kibbutzprogramcenter.org/kpc/node/7
5.
Sovhoosid ja kolhoosid tänapäeva Iisraelis:
http://www.kibbutzvolunteer.com/kibbutzim.html
6.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100222124212AAGDDIy

7.
http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Collective-farming
Encyclopedia > Collective farming

Collective farming regards a system of agricultural organization in which farm laborers are not compensated via wages. Rather, the workers receive a share of the farm's net productivity.


The political process of institutionalizing this aforementioned system is known as collectivization. The Soviet Union undertook the world's first [citation needed] campaign of mass collectivization from 1928-1933. Soviet peasants in collective farms received a type of dividend after compulsory deliveries were made to the state. However, this was an example of forced collectivization, and should not be confused with voluntary collectivization, such as the one that takes place in a Kibbutz. Forced collectivization historically has had mixed results, sometimes causing famine and mass starvation when implemented on a large scale.
http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Collective-farming
9.
http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Kibbutz
Encyclopedia > Kibbutz
Kibbutz Merom Golan as seen from Bental mountain
Kibbutz Merom Golan as seen from Bental mountain

A Kibbutz (Hebrew: קיבוץ Translit.: kibbutz Plural: kibbutzim Translated: gathering, together) is an Israeli collective community. The movement combines socialism and Zionism in a form of practical Labor Zionism, founded at a time when independent farming was not practical or perhaps more correctly—not practicable. Forced by necessity into communal life, and inspired by their own ideology, the kibbutz members developed a pure communal mode of living that attracted interest from the entire world. While the kibbutzim lasted for several generations as utopian communities, most of today's kibbutzim are scarcely different from the capitalist enterprises and regular towns to which the kibbutzim were originally supposed to be alternatives. Today, farming has been partially abandoned in many cases, with hi-tech industries very common in their place.[1] Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 483 pixelsFull resolution‎ (1,690 × 1,021 pixels, file size: 201 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) w:en:Kibbutz Merom Golan, viewed from Bental mountain. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 483 pixelsFull resolution‎ (1,690 × 1,021 pixels, file size: 201 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) w:en:Kibbutz Merom Golan, viewed from Bental mountain. ... Hebrew redirects here. ... Hebrew uses the Hebrew alphabet with optional vowel points. ... Look up plural in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up translate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Socialism is a broad array of ideologies and political movements with the goal of a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community for the purposes of increasing social and economic equality and cooperation. ... This article is about Zionism as a movement, not the History of Israel. ... Labor Zionism (or Socialist Zionism, Labour Zionism) is the traditional left wing of the Zionist ideology and was historically oriented towards the Jewish workers movement. ... See Utopia (disambiguation) for other meanings of this word Utopia, in its most common and general meaning, refers to a hypothetical perfect society. ... High tech refers to high technology, technology that is at the cutting-edge and the most advanced currently available. ...


The kibbutzim have given Israel a disproportionate share of its military leaders, intellectuals, and politicians.[2] The kibbutz movement never accounted for more than 7% of the Israeli population.
http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Kibbutz
10.
http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Kibbutz#Communal_life

Ideology of the kibbutz movement

The members of the First Aliyah had been religious, but the members of the Second Aliya, of whom the founders of Degania were a tiny subsection, were not. Although they were settling in the land of the Bible, these young people were not the type to attend synagogue. To their minds, Orthodox Judaism was a hindrance for the Jewish people. The spiritualism of the pioneers of the kibbutz movement consisted of mystical feelings about Jewish work, articulated by labor Zionists like Berl Katznelson, who said, "everywhere the Jewish laborer goes, the divine presence goes with him."[3] Members of the Bilu movement in Palestine The First Aliyah is the first Zionist aliyah, having taken place between 1882 and 1903. ... The Second Aliyah was arguably the most important and influential aliyah. ... Berl Katznelson (1887 - 1944) was a Labor Zionism philosopher. ...
Kibbutz Bet Alfa in the Mandate Period.

In addition to redeeming the Jewish nation through work, there was also an element of redeeming Eretz Yisrael, Palestine, in the kibbutz ideology. In Yiddish Anti-Zionist literature that was circulating around Eastern Europe, Palestine was mocked as "dos gepeigerte land"—"the country that had died." Kibbutz members took pleasure in bringing the land back to life by planting trees, draining swamps, and countless other activities to make the land more fertile. In soliciting donations, kibbutzim and other Zionist settlement activities presented themselves as "making the desert bloom." photograph of Kibbutz Bet Alfa. ... photograph of Kibbutz Bet Alfa. ... Yiddish (ייִדיש, Jiddisch) is a Germanic language spoken by about four million Jews throughout the world. ...


Most kibbutzim were indeed founded on vacant land. Like most other Jewish agricultural communities, kibbutzim were founded in three relatively small, flat, low-lying regions of the country, the upper Jordan Valley, the Jezreel Valley and the Sharon coastal plain. The land was marshy and highly fertile, but available for purchase because it was infested with malaria and thus unproductive. Most early kibbutzniks, including David ben Gurion himself, suffered from malaria. In areas of higher elevation without standing water, where mosquitos could not breed—such as the area now called the West Bank—there were few if any kibbutzim. Northern part of the Great Rift Valley as seen from space (NASA) The Jordan River The Jordan River (Hebrew: × ×”×¨ הירדן nehar hayarden, Arabic: نهر الأردن nahr al-urdun) is a river in Southwest Asia flowing through the Great Rift Valley into the Dead Sea. ... Jezreel Valley and Mount Tabor, Israel Jezreel Valley The Jezreel Valley ; ‎, Emek Yizrael, also known as the Plain of Esdraelon (Esdraelon is the Koine Greek rendering of Jezreel[1]), and as the Zirin Valley (Arabic: , Sahel Zirin), and as the Meadow of Amrs son (مرج بن عامر, Marj Ibn Amer), is... Sharon (שָ×�רוֹן, Standard Hebrew Å aron, Tiberian Hebrew Å Ä�rôn) can be a Female or male name which can be spelt with one r or two (Sharron). ... In geography, a coastal plain is an area of flat, low-lying land adjacent to a seacoast and separated from the interior by other features. ... ...


Members of a kibbutz, or kibbutzniks, like other participants in the Zionist movement, did not predict that there would be conflict between Jews and Arabs over Palestine. Mainstream Zionists predicted that Arabs would be grateful for the economic benefits that the Jews would bring. The left wing of the kibbutz movement believed that the enemies of the Arab peasants were Arab landowners (called effendis), not Jewish fellow farmers. By the late 1930s as the struggle against world fascism and for a political refuge for persecuted Jews began, kibbutzniks began to assume a military role in the New Yishuv. Yishuv is a Hebrew word meaning settlement. ...


The first kibbutzniks hoped to be more than plain farmers in Palestine. They even hoped for more than a Jewish homeland there: they wanted to create a new type of society where there would be no exploitation of anyone and where all would be equal. The early kibbutzniks wanted to be both free from working for others and from the guilt of exploiting hired work. Thus was born the idea that Jews would band together, holding their property in common, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." For other uses, see Society (disambiguation). ... From each according to his ability, to each according to his need (or needs) is a slogan popularized by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program. ...


Kibbutz members were not classic Marxists. Marxists did not believe in nations. Although Leninists were hostile to Zionism, even its communist manifestations, the Soviet Union quickly recognized Israel. Later Soviet hostility largely served Moscow's diplomatic and military interests in the Arab world. Following the 1953 Doctors' plot and 1956 denouncement of Stalin's atrocities by Nikita Khrushchev in his Secret Speech, many of the remaining hard-line Kibbutzim communists rejected communism. However, to this day many Kibbutzim remain a stronghold of left-wing ideology among the Israeli Jewish population. Marxism is both the theory and the political practice (that is, the praxis) derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ... This article is about communism as a form of society and as a political movement. ... January 7 - President Harry S. Truman announces the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb. ... The Doctors plot (Russian language: дело врачей (doctors affair), врачи-вредители (doctors-saboteurs) or врачи-убийцы (doctors-killers)) was an alleged conspiracy to eliminate the leadership of the Soviet Union by means of Jewish doctors poisoning top leadership. ... Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვილ... Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (Russian: , Nikita SergeeviÄ� ChruÅ¡Ä�iov; IPA: , in English, , or , occasionally ); surname more accurately romanized as Khrushchyov[1]; April 17 [O.S. April 5] 1894[2]–September 11, 1971) was the chief director of the Soviet Union after the death of Joseph Stalin. ... The Secret Speech is the common name of a speech given on February 25, 1956 by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denouncing the actions of Josef Stalin. ...


Although kibbutzniks practiced communism themselves, they did not believe that communism would work for everyone. Kibbutz political parties never called for the abolition of private property. Kibbutzniks saw kibbutzim as collective enterprises within a free market system. Also, kibbutzim are democratic, holding periodic elections for Kibbutz functions, being governed democratically and actively participating in national elections. Kibbutzim generally modeled an anarcho-syndicalist or social libertarian philosophy. A free market is an idealized market, where all economic decisions and actions by individuals regarding transfer of money, goods, and services are voluntary, and are therefore devoid of coercion and theft (some definitions of coercion are inclusive of theft). Colloquially and loosely, a free market economy is an economy... Anarcho-syndicalist flag. ... Social liberalism, also called new liberalism[1][2] (as it was originally termed), radical liberalism,[3] modern liberalism,[4], or in Britain and North America simply liberalism, is a development of liberalism stemming from the late 19th century; it forms the core of the somewhat wider movement of left-liberalism...


It should be noted that kibbutzim were not the only communal enterprises in Israel. Palestine also saw the development of communal villages called Moshavim (singular: Moshav). In a moshav, marketing and major farm purchases would be done collectively, but personal lives were entirely private. Although much less famous than kibbutzim, moshavim have always been more numerous and popular than kibbutzim. Moshav (Hebrew: מושב Translit. ...


Communal life
A kibbutz meeting.

The principle of equality was taken extremely seriously up until the 1970s. Kibbutzniks did not individually own animals, tools, or even clothing. Gifts and income received from outside were turned over to the common treasury. If one kibbutz member received a gift in services—like a visit to a relative who was a dentist or a trip abroad paid for by a parent—there were arguments at evening meetings about the propriety of accepting such a gift. photo of a kibbutz general meeting, from Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs website This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... photo of a kibbutz general meeting, from Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs website This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ...


The arrival of children at a new kibbutz posed certain problems. If kibbutzniks owned everything in common, then who was in charge of the children? This question was answered by regarding the children as belonging to all, even to the point of kibbutz mothers breastfeeding babies which were not their own. For most kibbutzim, the arrival of children was a sobering experience. "When we saw our first children in the playpen, hitting one another, or grabbing toys just for themselves, we were overcome with anxiety. What did it mean that even an education in communal life couldn't uproot these egotistical tendencies? The utopia of our initial social conception was slowly, slowly destroyed."[4]


In the 1920s kibbutzim began a practice of raising children communally away from their parents in special communities called "Children's Societies" (Mossad Hinuchi). The theory was that trained nurses and teachers would be better care-providers than amateur parents. Children and parents would have better relationships due to the Children's Societies, since parents would not have to be disciplinarians, and there would be no Oedipus Complex. Also, it was hoped that raising children away from parents would liberate mothers from their "biological tragedy." Instead of spending hours a day raising children, women could thus be free to work or enjoy leisure. This article is about the occupation. ... Discipline is any training intended to produce a specific character or pattern of behaviour, especially training that produces moral or mental development in a particular direction. ... The Oedipus complex in Freudian psychoanalysis refers to a stage of psychosexual development in childhood where children of both sexes regard their father as an adversary and competitor for the exclusive love of their mother. ...


There is much to be said about the role of women on kibbutzim. In the early days there were always more men than women on kibbutzim, so naturally kibbutzim tended to be male-dominated places. Memoirs of early kibbutz life tend to show female kibbutzniks as desperate to perform the same kinds of roles as kibbutz men, from digging up rocks to planting trees. At Degania at least, it seems that the men wanted the women to continue to perform traditional female roles, such as cooking, sewing, and cleaning.


Eventually the men of the kibbutz gave in and allowed, even expected, women to perform the same roles as men, including guard duty. The desire to liberate women from traditional maternal duties was another ideological underpinning of the Children's Society system. Interestingly, women born on kibbutzim were much less reluctant to perform traditional female roles. It was the generation of women born on kibbutzim who eventually ended the Societies of Children. Also, although there was a "masculinization of women", there was no corresponding "feminization" of men. Women may have worked the fields, but men did not work childcare.


Social lives were held in common as well, not only property. As an example, most kibbutz dining halls exclusively had benches. It was not an issue of cost or convenience, but benches were considered to be another way of expressing communal values. At some kibbutzim husbands and wives were discouraged from sitting together, as marriage was a kind of exclusivity. In The Kibbutz Community and Nation Building, Paula Rayman reports that Kibbutz Har refused to buy teakettles for its members in the 1950s. It was not that the teakettles were expensive, it was that couples having their own teakettles would have meant that people would spend more time in apartments, rather than in the communal dining hall.


The communal life was naturally hard for some people. Every kibbutz saw new members quit after a few years. Since kibbutzniks had no individual bank accounts, any purchase that could not be made at the kibbutz canteen had to be approved by a committee, a potentially humiliating experience. Kibbutzim also had their share of members who were not hard workers, or who abused common property; there would always be resentment against these "parasites." Finally, kibbutzim, as small, isolated communities, tended to be places of gossip.


Although major decisions about the future of the kibbutz were made by consensus or by voting, day-to-day decisions about where people would work were made by elected leaders. Typically, kibbutzniks would learn their assignments by reading an assignment sheet.


Kibbutz memoirs from the Pioneer era report that kibbutz meetings were heated arguments or free-flowing philosophical discussions. Memoirs and accounts from kibbutz observers from the 1950s and 1960s report that kibbutz meetings were businesslike and poorly attended.


Kibbutzim attempted to rotate people into different jobs. One week a person might work in planting, the next week with livestock, the week after in the kibbutz factory, the next week in laundry. Even managers would have to work in menial jobs. Through rotation, people took part in every kind of work, but it interfered with any process of specialization.


Children's Societies were one of the features of kibbutz life that most interested outsiders. In the heyday of Children's Societies, parents would only spend two hours a day, typically in the afternoon, with their children. In Kibbutz Artzi parents were explicitly forbidden to put their children to bed at night. As children got older, parents would sometimes go for days on end without seeing their offspring, except from chance encounters on the grounds of the kibbutz.


Some children who went through Children's Societies said they loved the experience, others are ambivalent, but a vocal group says that growing up without one's parents was very difficult. Years later, a kibbutz member described her childhood in a Children's Society:

Allowed to suckle every four hours, left to cry and develop our lungs, we grew up without the basic security needed for survival. Sitting on the potty at regular intervals next to other children doing the same, we were educated to be the same; but we were, for all that, different…. At night the grownups leave and turn off all the lights. You know you will wet the bed because it is too frightening to go to the lavatory.[5]

Aversion to sex was not part of the kibbutz ideology, in fact, teenaged boys and girls were not segregated at night in Children's Societies, yet many visitors to kibbutzim were amazed at how conservative the communities tended to be. In Children of the Dream, Bruno Bettelheim quoted a kibbutz friend, "at a time when the American girls preen themselves, and try to show off as much as possible sexually, our girls cover themselves up and refuse to wear clothing that might show their breasts or in any other fashion be revealing." Kibbutz divorce rates were and are extremely low.[6] Unfortunately, from the point of view of the adults in the community, marriage rates among communally raised children were equally low. This conservatism on the part of kibbutz children has been attributed to the Westermarck effect—a form of reverse sexual imprinting that causes children raised together from an early age to reject each other as potential partners, even where they are not blood relatives. This article is about the psychological term. ...


Kibbutzim have always been very cultured places. Many kibbutzniks were and are writers, actors, or artists. Kibbutzim have theater companies, choirs, orchestras, athletic leagues, and classes. In 1953 Givat Brenner staged the play My Glorious Brothers, about the Maccabee revolt, building a real village on a hilltop as a set, planting real trees, and performing for 40,000 people. Like all kibbutz work products at the time, all the actors were members of the kibbutz, and all were ordered to perform as part of their work assignments. The Maccabees were a Jewish family who fought against the rule of Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Hellenistic Seleucid dynasty, who was succeeded by his infant son Antiochus V Eupator. ...


A kibbutz is a small collective community that many people choose to live in for a number of reasons. For one, the resources they can attains a whole community is far larger amount than that of a person or family living in a smaller community or by themselves.[citation needed]


Psychological aspects

The era of independent Israel kibbutzim attracted interest from sociologists and psychologists who attempted to answer the question: What are the effects of life without private property? What are the effects of life being brought up apart from one's parents? Sociology is the study of the social lives of humans, groups and societies. ... A psychologist is an expert in psychology, the systematic investigation of the human mind, including behavior, cognition, and affect. ... This page deals with property as ownership rights. ...


Two researchers who wrote about psychological life on kibbutzim were Melford E. Spiro (1958) and Bruno Bettelheim (1969). Both concluded that a kibbutz upbringing led to individuals' having greater difficulty in making strong emotional commitments thereafter, such as falling in love or forming a lasting friendship. On the other hand, they appear to find it easier to have a large number of less-involved friendships, and a more active social life. Melford Elliot Spiro (born 1920) is an American cultural anthropologist. ... Bruno Bettelheim (August 28, 1903 - March 13, 1990) was an Austrian-born American writer and child psychologist. ... Falling in love is a mainly Western term used to describe the process of moving from a feeling of neutrality towards someone, to one of love. ... Social relation can refer to a multitude of social interactions, regulated by social norms, between two or more people, with each having a social position and performing a social role. ...


Bettelheim suggested that the lack of private property was the cause of the lack of emotions in kibbutzniks. He wrote, "nowhere more than in the kibbutz did I realize the degree to which private property, in the deep layers of the mind, relates to private emotions. If one is absent, the other tends to be absent as well". (See primitivism and primitive communism for a general discussion of these concepts). Look up Emotion in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Primitivism is an artistic movement which originated as a reaction to the Enlightenment. ... Primitive communism, according to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, is the original society of humanity. ...


Other researchers came to a conclusion that children growing up in these tightly knit communities tended to see the other children around them as ersatz siblings and preferred to seek mates outside the community when they reached maturity. Some theorize that living amongst one another on a daily basis virtually from birth on produced an extreme version of the Westermarck effect, which subconsciously diminished teenage kibbutzniks' sexual attraction to one another. Partly as a result of not finding a mate from within the kibbutz, youth often abandon kibbutz life as adults. Exogamy has two related definitions, both biological and cultural. ... This article is about the psychological term. ...


It is a subject of debate within the kibbutz movement as to how successful kibbutz education was in developing the talents of gifted children. Many kibbutz-raised children look back and say that the communal system stifled ambition; others say that bright children were nonetheless encouraged. Bruno Bettelheim had predicted that kibbutz education would yield mediocrity: "[kibbutz children] will not be leaders or philosophers, will not achieve anything in science or art."


Bettelheim's prediction was certainly wrong about the specific children he met at "Kibbutz Atid." In the 1990s a journalist tracked down the children Bettelheim had interviewed back in the 1960s at what was actually Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan. The journalist found that the children were highly accomplished in academia, business, music, and the military. "Bettelheim got it totally wrong."[7] For other uses, see Journalist (disambiguation). ... Academia is a collective term for the scientific and cultural community engaged in higher education and research, taken as a whole. ... In economics, a business is a legally-recognized organizational entity existing within an economically free country designed to sell goods and/or services to consumers, usually in an effort to generate profit. ... For other uses, see Music (disambiguation). ...


Kibbutz and child rearing

In addition to reports by individual journalists or reporters, there is a large body of empirical research dealing with child rearing in kibbutzim. Such research has been critical of the way children are raised in a Kibbutz.


In a 1977 study, Fox compared the separation effects experienced by kibbutz children when removed from their mother, compared with removal from their caregiver (called a metapelet in Hebrew). He found that the child showed separation distress in both situations, but when reunited children were significantly more attached to their mothers than to the metapelet. The children protested subsequent separation from their mothers when the metapelet was reintroduced to them. However, kibbutzim children shared high bonding with their parents as compared to those who were sent to boarding schools, because in a kibbutz a child spends three hours every day with his or her parents. Caregiver may refer to: A voluntary caregiver An assisted living situation A nursing home A hospice care situation Category: ... Hebrew redirects here. ... A boarding school is a usually fee-charging school where some or all pupils not only study, but also live during term time, with their fellow students and possibly teachers. ...


In another study by Scharf,[8] the group brought up in communal environment within a kibbutz showed less ability in coping with imagined situations of separation than those who were brought up with their families. This has far reaching implications for child attachment adaptability and therefore institutions like kibbutzim. These interesting kibbutz techniques are controversial with or without these studies. Community is a set of people (or agents in a more abstract sense) with some shared element. ... Look up Family in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...


Kibbutz economics

Kibbutzim in the early days tried to be self-sufficient in all agricultural goods, from eggs to dairy to fruits to meats. Through experimentation, kibbutzniks discovered that self-sufficiency was impossible.


Kibbutzniks were also not self-sufficient when it came to capital investment. At the founding of a kibbutz, when it would be opened on land owned by the Jewish National Fund; for expansion, most kibbutzim were dependent on subsidies from charity or the State of Israel. Most of the subsidies took the form of low-interest loans or discounted water. In Israel, when interest rates were routinely over 30% until the 1990s and where water is expensive, these gifts came to a very great amount indeed. The JNF logo found on all JNF charity boxes. ...


Even prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, kibbutzim had begun to branch out from agriculture into manufacturing. Kibbutz Degania, for instance, set up a factory to fabricate diamond cutting tools, it now grosses several million dollars a year. Kibbutz Hatzerim has a factory for drip irrigation equipment. Hatzerim's business, called Netafim, is a multinational corporation that grosses over $300 million a year. Maagan Michael branched out from making bullets to making plastics and medical tools. Maagan Michael's enterprises earn over $100 million a year. A great wave of kibbutz industrialization came in the 1960s, and today only 15% of kibbutz members work in agriculture. Manufacturing (from Latin manu factura, making by hand) is the use of tools and labor to make things for use or sale. ... Degania, the mother of kvutzot (small kibbutzim) in the 1930s. ... Man powered Diamond cutting mill in 18th century Diamond cutting is the art, skill and, increasingly, science of changing a diamond from a rough stone into a faceted gem. ... Drip Irrigation - A dripper in action Main article: Irrigation Drip irrigation, also known as trickle irrigation or microirrigation is an irrigation method that applies water slowly to the roots of plants, by depositing the water either on the soil surface or directly to the root zone, through a network of...


Kibbutzim industrialized at a time when agricultural jobs were not enough to absorb everyone on the kibbutz. Kibbutzim also industrialized due to pressure from the State of Israel. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s Israel had one of the world's highest trade deficits, the state was desperate to increase exports and kibbutzim were asked to play a role. Balance of trade figures are the sum of the money gained by a given economy by selling exports, minus the cost of buying imports. ...


The hiring of seasonal workers was always a point of controversy in the kibbutz movement. During harvest time, when hands were needed, the permissibility of hiring external workers was considered. Most kibbutzim compromised with practical exigencies and began the practice of hiring non-kibbutzniks when work was at its peak.


Hiring non-Jews was especially contentious. The founders of the kibbutz movement wanted to redeem the Jewish nation through work, and hiring non-Jews to do hard tasks would not be consistent with that idea. In the 1910s Kibbutz Degania vainly searched for Jewish masons to build their homes. Only when they could not find Jewish masons willing to endure the malaria of their location did they hire Arabs.


Today, kibbutzim have changed dramatically. Only 38% of kibbutz employees are kibbutz members. By the 1970s, kibbutzim were frequently hiring Palestinians. Currently, Thais have replaced Palestinians as the non-Jewish physical work element at kibbutzim. They are omnipresent in various service areas and in factories. The Palestinian flag, adopted in 1948, is a widely recognized modern symbol of the Palestinian people. ...
This factory at Kibbutz Hanita makes contact lenses.

As kibbutzim branched out into manufacturing in the 1960s, they are branching out into tourism and services today. Kibbutz Hatzerim even has a law firm. Virtually every kibbutz has guest rooms for rent. Some of these rooms are spartan and are intended for travelling students, but Kiryat Anavim has a luxury hotel with a view. Several kibbutzim, such as Kibbutz Lotan and Kfar Ruppin, operate bird-watching vacations. They say that a European visitor can see more birds in one week in Israel than he or she would in a year at home. It is not lost on the modern kibbutz movement that kibbutzniks today are working in occupations which the first kibbutz generation condemned. a photograph from a kibbutz contact lens factory This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... a photograph from a kibbutz contact lens factory This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... Kiryat Anavim (Hebrew: , lit. ...


Contrary to the predictions of classical economics, kibbutzim had no dearth of entrepreneurship. Many kibbutzim aggressively put money into building new enterprises, even playing the stock market. This borrowing spree caught up to the kibbutz movement in the 1980s, forcing kibbutzim to retreat from collective ideas. Today, most kibbutzim are at the economic break-even point, a dozen or so are very wealthy, and several score lose money.


Today, many people who live on kibbutzim have to work outside the kibbutz. They are expected to return a percentage of their earnings to the collective. One urban kibbutz, Kibbutz Tamuz, has no enterprises; all of its members work in the non-kibbutz sector. Kibbutz Tamuz ([‎] is a small, urban kibbutz located in the city of Beit Shemesh, Israel, approximately 30 minutes west of Jerusalem. ...