As Maya and I were discussing her trip to Israel as her Birthright, we started talking about the Kibbutz. She had lived in one for a while, but grew tired of it. A Kibbutz (gathering, clustering) is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Nowadays, these utopian communities are more industrial and create technology. The main purpose of the Kibbutz is that it is self-sustaining. Everything consumed by each Kibbutznik (member of the Kibbutz) is created by another member, and there is joint ownership of all property. It is a complete self sustaining economy, and usually does not contain more than a couple hundred people. Maya explained to me that instead of families eating on their own schedule, there is a community 'dining hall' where everybody chips in on the meal. Some people cook, some set up, others clean afterwards. The idea is that everyone works together for the better of the group.
There is an elected administrator to the Kibbutz, who is elected every 2-3 years. This person assigns positions for varying lengths of time, along with creating a rotation for members to do communal work such as kitchen and dining hall duties. In general, everything is organized and only works because there are principles to the Kibbutz that include its democratic nature, spirit of volunteerism, and commitment to idealism as motivation to the members. Nowadays, 40% of those who grow up in a Kibbutz return after their military service, and the majority of those in the Kibbutz are those who had grown up there, not those who grew up outside of that lifestyle, but chose it.
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