Word: kibbutzim
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...first, in the town of Khan Younis, where U.N. records and eyewitnesses say that Israeli soldiers herded around 275 Palestinian men out of their homes, lined them up against the wall of a 14th century castle and executed them. This was in retaliation for attacks on nearby Israeli kibbutzim. Then, several days later, in Rafah, another 100 or so Palestinians were shot and clubbed down as thousands were marched to a barbed-wire pen in a schoolyard for interrogation by Israelis hunting for renegade Egyptian soldiers and Fedayeen guerrillas. The Israelis deny that either event was a massacre, disputing...
...society and Israel’s history to the greater student body,” said Stern, president of Harvard Students for Israel (HSI). Tables were set up around the edge of the tent where students could plant a seed to simulate the communal farming of kibbutzim, make a bracelet with Hebrew letters, or compare Israel’s size to Argentina, Eqypt, France, the U.S., and Maine. One stand allowed participants to write messages that would then be delivered to the Western Wall, a Jewish holy site. Other booths offered information about Zionism, trips to Israel, and other opportunities...
...profile of the Israeli army is changing. Increasingly, today's soldier wears a yarmulke, the skullcap of the religious conservative. In the past, a majority of Israel's fighting officers came from agricultural communes, known as kibbutzim, and from villages. Over the past 15 years or so, kibbutz members have traded socialism for the materialistic individualism so prevalent in Israeli society. Nowadays, dynamic Israeli youngsters want to cash in on the country's high-tech boom and not spend their lives in uniform. The pool of potential recruits is also shrinking for other reasons: 11% of the nation...
...left. "Kibbutz life is peaceful and rich," says Koperstein. "But it came at a high price. You gave up individual needs. The idea of having someone telling you what to think, what to study, what work to do--it's like having four walls closing you in." In some kibbutzim (not Degania), children were separated from parents and raised in collective dormitories. Says Gal-Sarai: "Kibbutzniks from the other places are bringing good business to Tel Aviv's shrinks." Koperstein, who was not raised at Degania, recalls the time when, at age 7, he woke from a nightmare...
Only 1.7% of Israelis live on kibbutzim, but their influence pervades life and culture. For years, kibbutzniks were the nation's heroes. Moshe Dayan, Defense Minister during the Six-Day War, was born in Degania, and many military leaders and legislators also emerged from the kibbutzim. The kibbutz was a socialist dream. But Degania's manager, Tzali Koperstein, says, "From the start, it was never equal. It was a fake equality." Some toiled hard in Degania's diamond-cutting tool factory and in the fields; others slacked off. And as Israeli society began to value creativity and free enterprise over...