Kibbutz
These teenagers had hitherto worked as day laborers converting wetlands for human development, as masons, or as hands at the older Jewish settlements.
The founders of Degania endured backbreaking labor: "The body is crushed, the legs fail, the head hurts, the sun burns and weakens," wrote one of the pioneers.
Kibbutznikim did not pray three times a day like their parents and grandparents, but would mark holidays like Shavuot, Sukkot, and Passover with dances, meals, and celebrations.
Arab opposition increased as the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the wave of Jewish settlers to Palestine began to tilt the demographic balance of the area.
Yigal Allon, an Israeli soldier and statesman, explained the role of kibbutzim in the military activities of the Yishuv: The planning and development of pioneering Zionist were from the start at least partly determined by politico-strategic needs.
By the late 1930s, when it appeared that Palestine would be partitioned between Arabs and Jews, kibbutzim were established in outlying areas to ensure that the land would be incorporated into the Jewish state.
In 1946, on the day after Yom Kippur, eleven new "Tower and Stockade" kibbutzim were hurriedly established in the northern part of the Negev to give Israel a better claim to this arid, but strategically important, region.
Dr. Shlomo Getz, head of the Institute for the Research of the Kibbutz and the Cooperative Idea believes that by the end of 2012, there will be more kibbutzim switching to some alternative model.
Despite Communist atrocities [citation needed] and increasing state antisemitism in the USSR and its satellites many in the far left kibbutz movement, like Hashomer Hatzair (The Young Guard) viewed Stalin with awe and leader of the "peace camp".
"[27] Under Freud's influence, the importance of the early years of childhood development were understood by the Kibbutz and much emphasis was put on fostering the child's sense of individuality, creativity, and basic trust.
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.
Another example Yosef gives is that when his son, who was born and raised on a kibbutz, went into the army, he and his fellow bunk mates asked their supervising officer for a box.
The organisation of child rearing within the kibbutzim was largely based around adult imperatives rather than what was best for the children; collective parenting was seen as a means of establishing gender equality between men and women.
Not having traditional marriage was seen as a way to dissolve the patriarchy and give women their own standing without depending on a man (economically or socially) and was also viewed as a positive thing for the community as a whole, as communal life was the main aspect of the kibbutz.
However, in the 1960s, while the rest of the Western world demanded equality of the sexes and embraced feminism, the second generation of kibbutz born women began to return to more traditional gender roles.
The sociologist Arnold W. Green argues that all this may be an illustrative example of a more general tendency:The phenomenon is worldwide: women are concentrated in fields which require, singly or in combination, housewifely skills, patience and routine, manual dexterity, sex appeal, contact with children.
Since kibbutzniks had no individual bank accounts, any purchase not made at the kibbutz canteen had to be approved by a committee, a potentially humiliating and time-wasting experience.
Finally, kibbutzim, as small, isolated communities, tended to be places of gossip, exacerbated by lack of privacy and the regimented work and leisure schedules.
Aversion to sex was not part of the kibbutz ideology; to this end, teenagers were not segregated at night in children's societies, yet many visitors to kibbutzim were astonished at how conservative the communities tended to be.
All 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.
Some theorize that living amongst one another on a daily basis virtually from birth on produced an extreme version of the Westermarck effect, which diminished teenage kibbutzniks' sexual attraction to one another.
However, it has been noted that although kibbutzim comprise only 5% of the Israeli population, surprisingly large numbers of kibbutzniks become teachers, lawyers, doctors, and political leaders.
Kibbutz Degania Alef opened a factory for diamond cutting tools that came to have a gross turnover of several US million dollars a year.
The founders of the kibbutz movement wanted to redeem the Jewish nation through manual labour, and hiring non-Jews to do hard tasks was not consistent with that idea.
The petitioners argued that the Kibbutz had dramatically changed its life style, having implemented differential salaries, closing the communal dining hall, and privatising the educational system and other services.
The second classification was called the 'renewing kibbutz' and included developments and changes in lifestyle, provided that the basic principles of mutual guarantee and equality are preserved.
[58] An agricultural building was rented by an emissary from Baron Robert de Rothschild to open a farm-school for young French Jews, before their departure for Palestine, conquered by the British in December 1917 with the arrival in Jerusalem in particular of General Edmund Allenby and which was then placed by decision of the League of Nations in 1920 as a mandatory territory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
[60] From 1960 to 1963, a Jansenist Catholic kibbutz, inspired by the kibbutzim of Israel, was created by Vincent Thibout, a member of La Famille [fr] in Pardailhan.
In later era many of their factories led Israeli efforts to gain economic independence by production for export, while their political involvement was of major importance up to 1948.
The invention of the Tower and Stockade system by which 52 settlements from 1938 to 1947 largely decided the borders of Israel in the UN 29 November 1947 decision, is attributed to kibbutz member Shlomo Gur.
