Kibbutz: The End
A Proud View of the Past, A Sober Look to the Future
Ayala Gilad
The kibbutz has come to the end of its road. This is a process that should be viewed from a sober, realistic perspective and not with a sense of failure or tragedy. We should look at our past with pride and soberly examine our present and future.
For over a decade most kibbutzim have been beset by a severe economic and social crisis that has led to a demographic crisis no less severe, and today are unable to extricate themselves from its clutches.
I will leave the legal and economic issues of division of assets, share allocation and the calculation of a differential wage scale to others. I wish to discuss the spiritual and emotional aspect.
The founding fathers of the kibbutz raised two banners: the pioneering Zionist banner of settling and building this country, and that of social justice, cooperation and equality. It was one of those miraculous moments that occurs so rarely in history when the desires of the individual meld with national aspirations and ideals and imbue them with universal social content. The kibbutz founders were wise enough to appreciate the significant processes their generation was undergoing, became part of them and fulfilled themselves through their realization.
Two things can happen to people’s dreams: they either come true or are shattered. Both happened to the kibbutz dream. The dream of building this country and determining its borders was fulfilled while that of changing human nature was shattered, probably because it was unrealistic from the outset.
After the establishment of the state, its borders were determined and the value of settlement as the defining factor of holding on to the land and determining its borders gradually diminished. Today this is the private fief of the West Bank settlers.
The shattered dream is part of the values upon which the kibbutz was founded, as they are succinctly carved in stone on the monument to the kibbutz movement near Kibbutz Degania: “…The bond of fraternity, cooperation and equality – in labour, assets and life.” The greater part of these values was smashed against the rock of reality and as the years went by they atrophied, became distorted and sullied, and today they are anachronistic and irrelevant, and to struggle for their continued existence would be pointless. Behold, it was such a beautiful dream and now it, too, is lost.
We have no alternative but to admit that we were unable to create a new human being and that it is impossible to change human nature. And we too, members of the kibbutzim, are human beings and share all of humanity’s frailties and desires. We are ordinary mortals who are concerned, first and foremost, with our own families, our ambitions for money and a high standard of living, and we want to be able to bequeath some property to our children (Wow! I can’t believe I actually wrote that!)
Those who conceived the kibbutz did not think it through to the end. The kibbutz suited the needs of a group of carefree youngsters but not those of a multi-generational and complex human society. The ideological fervor of the second- and third-generation kibbutz children, and the many others who have made the kibbutz their home, has long since waned. The majority has stayed in the kibbutz either for its convenience and quality of life, or simply because they cannot afford a higher standard of living outside it.
The kibbutz is neither a divine imperative nor the Word of God to Moses on Mount Sinai. Once it ceased providing an appropriate solution to the problems of the people living in it, and when the majority of its children do not come back, the kibbutz has fulfilled its purpose from a historical standpoint and its constituent values no longer exist. The kibbutz has come to the end of its life. That is the way of the world.
For more than a decade now I have agonized over, deliberated on, and written this kibbutz narrative. I have hewn it from deep within me. For me, this process of bidding farewell to the kibbutz has been protracted and anguished, difficult and painful, despairing and sad. Yet still I stand tearful and in wonderment.
Today I have reached the final stage of processing my grief over this loss and am now writing the final chapter, entitled “Kibbutz: The End”. This story has no winners or losers, no heroes or villains. The kibbutz has simply lived out its life.
Today I can say wholeheartedly, fearlessly, unembarrassed, without glossing over the truth, sincerely, lucidly, openly and confidently: “The kibbutz has come to the end of its life!”
And yet today more than ever I feel the need and desire to sum up my personal kibbutz curriculum vitae. Our curriculum vitae. To take inventory, as it were, to draw up a balance sheet of profit and loss, and to set the house of my own emotional survival in order.
I want to sum up our past and say to us all – to the founders of the kibbutz who are still with us today, and to us, the second- and third-generation kibbutz children – that we were privileged to be able to participate in a tremendous historical enterprise.
We were imbued with the sense of a national and social mission that endowed our lives with content and vision. We knew how to live a life of going without, of material frugality and physical hardship; we lived modestly under conditions of intense social pressure; a life of loneliness, isolation and danger in remote settlements along Israel’s borders. We were poor in personal property but rich in deeds and values. The Yishuv, the pre-state Jewish community, viewed us as an elite group and for all our material impoverishment they respected us.
There was something magical in the kibbutz togetherness that gave you the wonderful feeling that you were a part of something important and lofty, that you were part of a community to which you gave of yourself and it, in return, enriched you spiritually and emotionally.
When I ask myself what are my most vivid and moving memories of kibbutz life, what did I love most of all, two instances always surface, both of which are related to the added value of kibbutz togetherness. Both are treasured memories, one from my childhood at Beit Zera, the kibbutz where I was born, and the other from the early years at Ein Gedi where I made my home. I remember the swirling circles of the Hora dancers: “Penniless we came / The poor of yesterday / Fate has entrusted us / With the millions of tomorrow”, and the impassioned community singing: “Behold and see / How great is this day”. Such an uplifting of the spirit is surely unparalleled, it was part of the experience of the privileged few, and no one can take it away from us.
Today I want to look my grandchildren in the eye and tell them, and the entire generation that did not know the kibbutz, that we, the members of the kibbutzim, were part of the awe-inspiring Zionist act of the birth and building of a nation. I want to tell them that we always strove to be the first and the best, and that we frequently succeeded. To tell them that our hand was always outstretched in giving, not to take. To tell them that we were part of one of the most thrilling experiments ever undertaken by human society in general, and by the reborn State of Israel in particular. It is hard to imagine what this country, its values and borders would have been like without the kibbutz movement.
And so, almost one hundred years since the founding of the first kibbutz, the kibbutz way of life is undergoing far-reaching changes and is slowly nearing its end. In a few years time the majority of the kibbutzim will have become community settlements of one sort or another. This is a process that should be viewed as a historical-evolutionary continuum that ought be regarded soberly and realistically, with no hint of failure or tragedy. We must accept the fact that the kibbutz has come to its end and deal with this transition period swiftly, wisely, efficiently, responsibly, and above all, in a fair and comradely spirit.
My dear mother and father, and the entire founding generation that is no longer with us and which gave meaning to our life in this country – the members of Degania, Kinneret, Ayelet Hashachar, Ein Shemer and Beit Alpha – I want to assure you that we will celebrate the kibbutz movement’s centennial in 2010 proudly, with our heads held high. We shall regard the past with pride and sum up our lives with the feeling and certain knowledge that we have done something for this country. That we left our mark and followed in your footsteps, experiencing as we went that special secret of togetherness without which none of this would have been possible. I want to promise you that we shall try and conclude this magnificent saga known as “The Kibbutz” as amicably as possible.
If it is to be again, let it be no different.
I was born, I grew up, I made my choices, I married, I gave birth, I matured, I grew old and I was buried in the kibbutz. There is no other place for me.