Word: kibbutzim
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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American and Israeli behavioral scientists, who have long studied the kibbutzim as the most interesting and durable collectives ever established anywhere, believe that it can. "The trouble with 19th century communes," explains Israeli Sociologist Menachem Rosner, "was that their founders set a fixed pattern from which they did not want to move." By contrast, he says, the kibbutz can survive because its members are willing to change and to give old values new forms of expression...
...kibbutzniks (commune members) lost a powerful source of motivation when the State of Israel was founded in 1948; they had long regarded their settlements and way of life as essential to the establishment of the new nation. Ever since that goal was reached, the kibbutzim have had trouble recruiting members willing to make the sacrifice that communal living demands...
...more subtle threat has recently appeared. Nearly two-thirds of the nation's 231 kibbutzim now operate factories, and their residents are undergoing psychological crises as a result of rapid industrialization. Many of the factories have been so successful that it has been necessary to hire outsiders to supplement kibbutz manpower. That practice is considered socially destructive by some kibbutzniks because it sets salaried workers apart from members, who are given the necessities of life without being paid in money. "Something happens when we become managers and employ workers," admits David Tal, economic administrator of Kibbutz Givat Brenner. "With...
...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...
...largest and most successful industrial operations is Sefen, a joint venture owned equally by seven kibbutzim and Ampal, the foreign-investment arm of the Israel Federation of Labor. Sefen's first factory, built in 1952 on the torrid Jordan Valley floor south of the Sea of Galilee, converted waste from a kibbutz plywood factory into insulator board. When Israel's building boom began in 1953, Sefen switched to making construction board. Now Sefen is a four-factory operation that last year earned a profit of $725,000 on revenues of over $11 million. It produces adhesives, scientific radiation...