Cultural Blog Post 2: Kibbutzim

[Elliott Hammer]

Israel has many communities/towns called Kibbutzim (sing. Kibbutz). Kibbutz literally means gathering or clustering. Kibbutzim started as utopian collectivist communities and were based in agriculture. Today many are still agricultural communities but some have diversified and moved away from agriculture to other industries. Originally they were based on a combination of socialism and zionism but there has been a significant amount of privitization since then.
My dad is from a kibbutz called Degania Bet which is located in the Jordan Valley in the center of Israel. This makes my dad a kibbutznik (any member of a kibbutz). Degania Bet is an agricultural kibbutz producing bananas, avocados, dairy products (specifically producing principally yogurt, which is delicious!) In Degania Bet there is a communal dining center, several communal bikes and cars/vans and a communal swimming pool. Food (two meals a day), housing, and education is all taken care of without cost. Everybody works and there is some rotation between jobs depending on the nature of the job. My dad mainly picked bananas and watermelons while he was in the kibbutz. The elderly retire and get a "pension". Everybody gets paid a certain amount of money (not that much because education, food, and housing are taken care of , but something substantial) depending on the size of their family. Their used to be an "ulpan" where immigrants/foreigners could come and learn hebrew and stay for free as long as they worked. I'm not sure if it still exists. I went there to visit when I was 15 and I loved it. I'll upload pictures if I can find them.