The History of Habonim Dror

Our last morning on Ein Dor also happened to be the first day of our seminar on the History of Habonim Dror, specifically the history of actualization (a.k.a. aliyah) in the movement. The seminar would last a little less than a week (from Sunday Dec 13th to Thursday Dec 17th). The structure of the seminar was that we would go to two or three places every day where we would hear someone speak. Then in the evenings we would return to our hostel and have a peulah. The week took us in chronological order from the earliest Habonim Dror kibbutzim founded in Israel, through the ideological crisis of the late 20th Century (where everybody realized that no one wanted to go live in kibbutz anymore, but more on that later), to the foundation of the first urban kibbutz and the new direction of the movement.

Before I go any further, let me give you a brief glossary of relevant terms.
Aliyah - Immigrating to Israel, literally translates to "going up"
Aliyoops - A colloquial term used to describe one who makes Aliyah, then 5-10 years later moves back, as in "oops". This term has a negative connotation in that it implies that this person realized that making Aliyah in the first place was a mistake. This negative connotation is problematic, as I will discuss later.
Garin - A group of people with whom you make Aliyah, with the intent of living with them, either on a kibbutz or in an urban kvutsah.
Kibbutz - Though I've already defined this term, I will be using it more specifically here. A kibbutz is not simply an agricultural village which used to include socialist values but has since been privatized. That is a gated community. A kibbutz is a collective environment which still operates on a specific ideology emphasizing community, labor zionism, and socialism.

Day 1

After saying our goodbyes to the Europeans (which was tearful for some, awkward for others), we made our way to Hatzer Kinneret, a kibbutz training facility used in the early 20th century. Here we ran into the Europeans, only about an hour after bidding them farewell. (And while the goodbye had only been awkward for some, this was awkward for everybody, especially for those who had shed tears.) After this we headed to the Kinneret Cemetery, where many famous zionist and socialist thinkers are buried, we went to a youth hostel on the shores of the Kinneret, which was our base for most of the seminar.

Day 2

We started Day Two by going to Kfar Hanassi, an early kibbutz founded by a Habonim Dror garin from the United Kingdom. Kfar Hanassi is no longer a kibbutz in the ideological sense; it has been privatized. At Kfar Hanassi we talked to Aryeh, who said that the kibbutz movement has become more relevant in becoming privatized. People weren't happy with their standard of life on the old kibbutz, and by privatizing it many people are much happier. Not only that, Aryeh said that the kibbutz movement still has an important, "relevant" place in Israeli society.

Next we went to talk to Doobie at Kfar Blum, another old kibbutz which has since been privatized and now resembles nothing more than a gated community. Doobie was the CEO of the hotel which Kfar Blum has built since being privatized, and Doobie admitted that Kfar Blum was "no longer a kibbutz." He said, "I like living here because of the lifestyle. It is a comfortable community." He acknowledged that he lives in a meaningless structure which has thrown out their ideology, but he's fine with it. He also said that he feels no responsibility to the rest of the state.

Third, and last on the hit parade of Day 1, we visited Mevoh Chama, a privatized kibbutz on the shored of the Kinneret. Here we met Joe, the most sympathetic of the day's figures. Joe moved to Mevoh Chama from Australia some 30 years ago, and the kibbutz was privatized about 15 years after. Coming across as a sad man, he explained that two things led to the death of the kibbutz movement: economic problems and ideological crisis. He was very upset about the privatization of the kibbutz, and, as opposed to the last two men who regarded us as naively ideological youngsters, he told us it was up to us to find meaning in the structure. He said he thought about leaving many times, but in the end, Mevoh Chama was home to him, and he still feels he is fulfilling his zionist ideals in other ways, such as working with delinquent youth in Tiberias.

The moral of the day, or at least something we heard from all three speakers, was that there was no other way; privatization was inevitable. But here were the major differences: Aryeh said that even though they threw out the structure, they still had the ideology. Doobie and Joe both acknowledged that the old kibbutzim had thrown out both the structure and the ideology. However, Doobie was was okay with it because he lived comfortably, whereas Joe was visibly upset. This balance between content and structure is the key, and it came up more and more as the week went on.

Day 3

We started out Day Three by visiting Beit Ha'emek, a kibbutz founded by a garin from Habonim Dror North America. Here we met with Gary and Judy. Before they joined Beit Ha'emek, however, they founded the first urban kibbutz, that is, a kvutsah living in an urban area doing social work rather than agriculture. This was in 1968, way before the idea of urban kibbutzim, or "irbutzim," was accepted, and they were almost kicked out of the movement for it. They wanted to establish an irbutz in order to abolish the "fortress mentality," or that of a gated community, that many of the rural kibbutzim that came before them had embraced. They wanted contact with the Israeli-Arab community, and they did all sorts of work in the area. Some of them were factory workers while others were professionals, but power dynamics weren't what broke up the irbutz. Rather, in 1972, the irbutz failed because it didn't grow.

So Gary and Judy picked up and joined Beit Ha'emek. Eventually, like almost all other rural kibbutzim, Beit Ha'emek began having problems, both economically and ideologically, and voted to privatize. The first vote was apparently very close, and privatization didn't pass until the second vote. In this case, Gary also has implied that there was no other way to solve the problems they were having but to privatize. Economically, the way the kibbutz operated wasn't profitable. Instead of giving everyone a salary according to what their work was, they put all the revenue into a large account, and from there each person was given according to their needs - for example, how big their family was, etc. This was economically inefficient, and no one knew what was profitable and what wasn't. So, Gary said, they simply separated the business from the community. This change of structure didn't change their ideology. However, at the same time he said that people wanted the change in order to be able to recognize their own potential. So it became evident to me that a change in structure did indeed reflect, if not cause, a change in the values of the kibbutz.

It wasn't clear whether or not Gary and Judy felt that they had abandoned their socialist zionist ideals or not, but they seemed happy enough and said that everyone in the community was doing quite well, was happy, and had more freedom. However, he also said there was less solidarity and social glue.

Next we visited Kvutsat Yovel, a kvutsah living in Migdal Ha'emek, an urban kibbutz with about 100 members. An urban kibbutz is a kibbutz whose industry is not agriculture but education and social justice work. The structure was different than that of the old kibbutzim - like they didn't live on a farm and eat in a dining hall, for instance - which raised an interesting question. What makes a kibbutz a kibbutz? Is it the structures like the fields, the laundry, and the kibbutz store? Or is it the content and values? What is the significance of the physical structures in expressing the content of the kibbutz? In any case, Kvutsat Yovel expressed that they thought they were "much more of a kibbutz than any of the old kibbutzim."

Day 4

The next day we visited Kibbutz Eshbal, a Hanoar Haoved (one of the Israeli youth movements) kibbutz which runs a boarding school for troubled kids and has a coexistence school on its property (which I'm now working at). Though set in a rural locations, Eshbal is also considered a sort of urban kibbutz as it caters to the area around it and does education as opposed to agriculture. At Eshbal, we also discussed how one of the fundamentals of a kibbutz is serving national interests. So in the early days of the state of Israel, kibbutzim served national interests by farming the land and settling land for security purposes. (Fun fact: kibbutzim were once the most efficient farms in Israel.) But now what the country needs is people to work in education and social justice in order to serve the large immigrant population, which is also becoming increasingly marginalized.

Day 5

On the last day of the seminar, we visited two Habonim Dror kvutsot living in Hadera. Each having formed only a few years ago, they talked about their experiences so far, and although they answered many of our questions, they left me with many more questions. Here are a few:

Is it possible to be a kvutsah in North America? What are the limitations living in North America?
What is the difference between a kvutsah-mate and simply a good friend?
Do I feel personally responsible to change Israeli society?
Did the old kibbutz movement fail? Or did it just do what it had to do and then they weren't needed anymore?
What makes a kibbutz a kibbutz?

And with that we left for a free weekend, with only five days left until the start of Kaveret. Though this post is rather late and we're already about a month into Kaveret, I'll be sure to give all the necessary updates on life in Akko when the next one goes up.