Word: kibbutz
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...artists, writers or musicians. One explanation is offered by Psychiatrist Stanley Greenspan of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md. He has interviewed many young kibbutzniks and found that they suffer from feelings of guilt and shame when their personal aspirations conflict with their loyalty to the kibbutz. Those who resolve the conflict sufficiently to ask for permission to study outside may run into resistance. "If a girl's heart's desire to become a ballerina is not just a whim, and if she is talented, then she will get ballet lessons," says Asher Golan...
...seven years ago there was still strong opposition to higher education: the fathers wanted to get their sons out on the land. Now they want them to go to college." After a five-year study of the generation gap, Rosner concluded that while older members remain strongly committed to kibbutz ideology, doctrinal ties have loosened among youth. As Economic Administrator Tal puts it: "My father was an idealist. It did not matter to him what he did so long as it was of benefit to the Jewish nation. But whatever I do, I do for myself, my family...
...Kibbutz life remains attractive to most of its members: between 70% and 80% return to it when they finish their required military stint, and the kibbutz population has maintained a growth rate of 2% to 3% a year even when Israel as a whole was growing more slowly. The appeal of the collective seems to come partly from its stability. "We still do not have the evils of the city. We live with our doors open," says David Tal. Indeed, there are no courts, no police, no crime, and virtually nothing that can be called juvenile delinquency...
Another recent change has been to allow boys and girls to shower and sleep separately after the age of ten or eleven, if they find a mixed group disturbing-as many do. For this and other reasons, kibbutz young people seem to have few serious sexual difficulties. Even when older boys and girls share the same dormitories, there is little sexual activity or even dating among roommates, apparently because a kind of incest taboo develops. There is no known homosexuality on the collectives, and practically no illegitimacy. Divorce is infrequent. Kibbutzim have their share of neurotics, but no more than...
...that kibbutzim seem to develop. "Our children are ashamed to be ashamed, afraid to be afraid; they are afraid to love, afraid to give of themselves," says an Israeli psychoanalyst. But Ron Shouval, formerly chief psychologist of the Israeli defense forces, has a different view. "It is true that kibbutz kids are shy and on the defensive. But their lack of giving easily to outsiders creates the wrong impression; they are warm underneath. It is just that the young kibbutznik does not give up his first layer easily...