The Mystery of the Kibbutz

The Mystery of the Kibbutz PDF Author: Ran Abramitzky
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691202249
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
How the kibbutz movement thrived despite its inherent economic contradictions and why it eventually declined The kibbutz is a social experiment in collective living that challenges traditional economic theory. By sharing all income and resources equally among its members, the kibbutz system created strong incentives to free ride or—as in the case of the most educated and skilled—to depart for the city. Yet for much of the twentieth century kibbutzim thrived, and kibbutz life was perceived as idyllic both by members and the outside world. In The Mystery of the Kibbutz, Ran Abramitzky blends economic perspectives with personal insights to examine how kibbutzim successfully maintained equal sharing for so long despite their inherent incentive problems. Weaving the story of his own family’s experiences as kibbutz members with extensive economic and historical data, Abramitzky sheds light on the idealism and historic circumstances that helped kibbutzim overcome their economic contradictions. He illuminates how the design of kibbutzim met the challenges of thriving as enclaves in a capitalist world and evaluates kibbutzim’s success at sustaining economic equality. By drawing on extensive historical data and the stories of his pioneering grandmother who founded a kibbutz, his uncle who remained in a kibbutz his entire adult life, and his mother who was raised in and left the kibbutz, Abramitzky brings to life the rise and fall of the kibbutz movement. The lessons that The Mystery of the Kibbutz draws from this unique social experiment extend far beyond the kibbutz gates, serving as a guide to societies that strive to foster economic and social equality.

The Mystery of the Kibbutz

The Mystery of the Kibbutz PDF Author: Ran Abramitzky
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691202249
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Get Book

Book Description
How the kibbutz movement thrived despite its inherent economic contradictions and why it eventually declined The kibbutz is a social experiment in collective living that challenges traditional economic theory. By sharing all income and resources equally among its members, the kibbutz system created strong incentives to free ride or—as in the case of the most educated and skilled—to depart for the city. Yet for much of the twentieth century kibbutzim thrived, and kibbutz life was perceived as idyllic both by members and the outside world. In The Mystery of the Kibbutz, Ran Abramitzky blends economic perspectives with personal insights to examine how kibbutzim successfully maintained equal sharing for so long despite their inherent incentive problems. Weaving the story of his own family’s experiences as kibbutz members with extensive economic and historical data, Abramitzky sheds light on the idealism and historic circumstances that helped kibbutzim overcome their economic contradictions. He illuminates how the design of kibbutzim met the challenges of thriving as enclaves in a capitalist world and evaluates kibbutzim’s success at sustaining economic equality. By drawing on extensive historical data and the stories of his pioneering grandmother who founded a kibbutz, his uncle who remained in a kibbutz his entire adult life, and his mother who was raised in and left the kibbutz, Abramitzky brings to life the rise and fall of the kibbutz movement. The lessons that The Mystery of the Kibbutz draws from this unique social experiment extend far beyond the kibbutz gates, serving as a guide to societies that strive to foster economic and social equality.

Family and Community in the Kibbutz

Family and Community in the Kibbutz PDF Author: Yonina Garber-Talmon
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674292765
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Some fundamental questions about the individual and the family in communal life are raised in this first collection of essays in English by Israeli sociologist Yonina Talmon. The author, who hitherto has been known to students of revolutionary and collectivist societies mainly through her journal articles, was engaged in an extensive study of the kibbutz at the time of her death in 1966. The decade of research conducted in representative kibbutzim, in cooperation with the Federation of Kevutzot and Kibbutzim, included interviews with kibbutz members as well as observation of kibbutz life. The author gives here a general report on the findings, followed by the results of seven specific investigations that shed light on major problems of many societies: social structure and family size; children's sleeping and family eating arrangements; occupational placement of the second generation; mate selection; aging; social differentiation; and secular asceticism. "This collection of essays," writes S. N. Eisenstadt in his Introduction, "represents a landmark in the development of the sociological study of the kibbutz movement." Yonina Talmon's "work not only opened up the kibbutz to sociological research, but put the research on kibbutz life in the forefront or sociological thinking and analysis."

Imagining the Kibbutz

Imagining the Kibbutz PDF Author: Ranen Omer-Sherman
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271070617
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
In Imagining the Kibbutz, Ranen Omer-Sherman explores the literary and cinematic representations of the socialist experiment that became history’s most successfully sustained communal enterprise. Inspired in part by the kibbutz movement’s recent commemoration of its centennial, this study responds to a significant gap in scholarship. Numerous sociological and economic studies have appeared, but no book-length study has ever addressed the tremendous range of critically imaginative portrayals of the kibbutz. This diachronic study addresses novels, short fiction, memoirs, and cinematic portrayals of the kibbutz by both kibbutz “insiders” (including those born and raised there, as well as those who joined the kibbutz as immigrants or migrants from the city) and “outsiders.” For these artists, the kibbutz is a crucial microcosm for understanding Israeli values and identity. The central drama explored in their works is the monumental tension between the individual and the collective, between individual aspiration and ideological rigor, between self-sacrifice and self-fulfillment. Portraying kibbutz life honestly demands retaining at least two oppositional things in mind at once—the absolute necessity of euphoric dreaming and the mellowing inevitability of disillusionment. As such, these artists’ imaginative witnessing of the fraught relation between the collective and the citizen-soldier is the story of Israel itself.

One Hundred Years of Kibbutz Life

One Hundred Years of Kibbutz Life PDF Author: Michal Palgi
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 1412851955
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
One Hundred Years of Kibbutz Life shows that the kibbutz thrives and describes changes that have occurred within Israel's kibbutz community. The kibbutz population has increased in terms of demography and capital, a point frequently overlooked in debates regarding viability. Like the kibbutz founders who established a society grounded in certain principles and meeting certain goals, kibbutz newcomers seek to build an idealistic society with specific social and economic arrangements. The years 1909-2009 marked a century of kibbutz life--one hundred years of achievements, challenges, and creative changes. The impact of kibbutzim on Israeli society has been substantial but is now waning. While kibbutzim have become less relevant in Israeli policy and politics, they are increasingly engaged in questions of environmentalism, education, and profitable industries. Contributors discuss the hopes, goals, frustrations, and disappointments of the kibbutz movement. They also examine reform efforts intended to revitalize the institution and reinforce fading kibbutz ideals. Such solutions are not always popular among kibbutz members, but they demonstrate that the kibbutz is an adaptive and flexible social organization. The various studies presented in this book clarify the dynamism of the kibbutz institution and raises questions about the ways in which residential arrangements throughout the world manage change.

A Living Revolution

A Living Revolution PDF Author: James Horrox
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781904859925
Category : Anarchism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
An exploration of the influences on Israel's early kibbutz movement.

The Kibbutz

The Kibbutz PDF Author: Daniel Gavron
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780847695263
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Focusing on the human story, journalist Daniel Gavron movingly portrays the fears, regrets and hopes of members of kibbutzim ranging from traditional to modern and agricultural to urban.

Chasing Utopia

Chasing Utopia PDF Author: David Leach
Publisher: ECW Press
ISBN: 1770909389
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
A fascinating, non-partisan exploration of an incendiary region Say the word “Israel” today and it sparks images of walls and rockets and a bloody conflict without end. Yet for decades, the symbol of the Jewish State was the noble pioneer draining the swamps and making the deserts bloom: the legendary kibbutznik. So what ever happened to the pioneers’ dream of founding a socialist utopia in the land called Palestine? Chasing Utopia: The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel draws readers into the quest for answers to the defining political conflict of our era. Acclaimed author David Leach revisits his raucous memories of life as a kibbutz volunteer and returns to meet a new generation of Jewish and Arab citizens struggling to forge a better future together. Crisscrossing the nation, Leach chronicles the controversial decline of Israel’s kibbutz movement and witnesses a renaissance of the original vision for a peaceable utopia in unexpected corners of the Promised Land. Chasing Utopia is an entertaining and enlightening portrait of a divided nation where hope persists against the odds.

Women in the Kibbutz

Women in the Kibbutz PDF Author: Lionel Tiger
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
"Our data show that although some 10 to 15 per cent of the women in the kibbutz express dissatisfaction with their sociosexual roles, the overwhelming majority not only accept their situations but have sought them. They have acted against the principles of their socialization and ideology, against the wishes of the men of their communities, against the economic interest of the kibbutzim, in order to be able to devote more time and energy to private maternal activities rather than to economic and political public ones. Obviously these women have minds of their own; despite obstacles, they are trying to accomplish what women elsewhere have been periodically urged to reject by critics of traditional female roles." -- from the book

Crisis and Transformation

Crisis and Transformation PDF Author: Eliezer Ben Rafael
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791432259
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Ben-Rafael shows how the crisis brought together a general pro-change Zeitgeist with the interests of the kibbutz's stronger social segments and individuals to produce widespread changes and the fragmentation of kibbutz reality as a whole. The book's findings are based on a large-scale research investigation (1991-1994) headed up by Ben-Rafael that included twenty research studies and involved the participation of researchers from diverse social-science disciplines.

Murder on a Kibbutz

Murder on a Kibbutz PDF Author: Batya Gur
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062970399
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
From award-winning and internationally acclaimed author, Batya Gur, comes another twisty mystery featuring charming Israeli investigator Michael Ohayon. Michael Ohayon must once again solve a murder that has taken place within a complex, closed society: the kibbutz. As he investigates, he uncovers more and more of the kibbutz’s secrets, exposing all the contradictions of this idealized way of life. Murder on a Kibbutz showcases once again Batya Gur’s storytelling talents in a thrilling mystery that readers will not soon forget.