Word: kibbutz
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Sitting on the barren, marshy frontiers of Israel, the typical kibbutz for years was rarely more than a commune of spartan farmers. But as Israel's economy has surged, the kibbutzim are becoming burgeoning industrial complexes and tourist attractions. Ferryboats, their decks crowded with sightseers, stand out among the austere fishermen on the Sea of Galilee. New hotels, some with seaside restaurants, are rising where banana trees once flourished in the subtropical sun. And daily from kibbutz factories flows a stream of products that range from machine tools and stainless steel kitchen equipment to shipping containers...
This year 170 of the 231 kibbutzim are either catering to tourists or running factories. Kibbutz hotels and restaurants in 1971 brought in only $5,000,000. But revenues from the kibbutz factories were $300 million, roughly 7% of Israel's total industrial production. At a symposium for factory managers last month, Winnipeg-born Dan Karmon, of the 212-member Kibbutz Industries Association, boasted that in the next five years revenues would more than double to $700 million. Already the kibbutz factories account for 35% of Israel's total plastics production, and in the past four years output...
...kibbutzim are well equipped to handle their industrial revolution. Many older kibbutz members were born abroad and came to Israel with polished technical skills, while others have been sent off to a university for managerial or scientific training. Money to build the factories normally comes from the kibbutz farm revenues, but when these funds are insufficient, development loans are available from the government or the workers' banks of the Israel Federation of Labor. Each kibbutz can decide what kind of factory it wants to build, but to eliminate duplicate projects their plans are reviewed by Karmon's association...
...Suez Canal. Elsewhere settlers have moved fast, and they are thinking far ahead. At coralline Sharm el Sheikh, now renamed Ophira, they are building hotels and planning still others to accommodate tourists. Hard-topped roads make access far easier than it was in 1967. At a new kibbutz on the Golan Heights, British-born Frank Donnel points to the freshly planted grass and trees. "Another ten years and you won't recognize the place," he says...
...more peaceful than it has been for years, although the quiet could be deceptive. Ein Bokek, on the Dead Sea, is about to become "Israel's Riviera"; hundreds of visitors arrive every day, and three new hotels are being built to accommodate them. At the Jordan Valley kibbutz of Kfar Ruppin, which was hit by 1,000 artillery shells during the war of attrition that followed the Six-Day War, Ya'acov Noy, a 35-year kibbutz veteran, observes: "The Arab shepherds now come down to bathe in the Jordan, and our children play there. We talk across...