Israel's oldest kibbutz votes for privatisation

Nearly a century after it was founded, Israel's first and most famous kibbutz has voted to give up its early socialist ideals and to privatise itself.

The changes at Degania, which was founded where the Sea of Galilee meets the river Jordan, were agreed by a vote and come after a one-year trial in which residents for the first time received private salaries.

In the past the 320 members of the kibbutz saw their salaries paid into a communal account and then received free services and an allowance based on need, usually determined by the size of their families. In future they will be paid varied salaries based on ability not need and, most importantly, they will be allowed to keep them.

In return they will have to pay for services such as electricity and water and they will have to pay a progressive income tax into the kibbutz which will be used to support the least well off.

Although some have objected to the changes, the vote was carried by 85% and represents a trend throughout Israel's kibbutz movement. Around two-thirds of the country's 230 or so kibbutzim have adopted similar privatisation plans in recent years, an attempt to hold on to their community lifestyle in the face of the influence of the outside world.

"I feel sad and in a way I am nostalgic for the traditional kibbutz, but I have to realise that I am nostalgic for my dream of a community that I had before I came," said Allan Shapiro, 79, a retired university lecturer in law and political science and a long-time resident of Degania.

"We depended on loyalty to the community and ideology to take the place of the market," he said. "The socialist part was really sort of minor here. The important thing was that there were Jews working the land with their own hands and if there was a search for anything it was a search for community."

Mr Shapiro moved to Degania from New York in 1955 and married the daughter of one of the founders of the kibbutz. A year ago he and his wife were opposed to the changes, but they voted in favour of the new system on Saturday.

In the past few decades there has been a gradual relaxation of the original communal ideals. Residents have paid for their own electricity for some years, since it was a way to cut costs.

Not all members of the kibbutz still work the land, and many are employed outside in industry and business, until now contributing their high salaries back into the coffers of the kibbutz. The communal dining room now serves only lunch and only a small number regularly attend. Mr Shapiro's son, who is now a judge in Haifa, has left the community.

"What we have done is to allow the market to take the place of the idealism," Mr Shapiro said. "I think the search for community still exists. It is still the basic concept." He said the test for the future would be holding that community together.

Degania was established as a commune in 1910 by 10 men and two women on land that had been bought for the Jewish National Fund. The pioneers wrote of their project: "We came to establish an independent settlement of Hebrew labourers, on national land, a collective settlement with neither exploiters nor exploited - a commune."

Soon they invited to live with them Aharon David Gordon, a Zionist ideologue who promoted an idea known as "religion of labour" and Degania began to acquire a fabled position in the kibbutz movement.

The first child born into the kibbutz was Moshe Dayan, the Israeli general who lost an eye in the second world war, led the Israeli forces during the Suez Crisis and became defence minister during the 1967 war. On the kibbutz they farmed avocado, bananas and dates, and ran a dairy farm and a small industrial tools factory.

The movement is by no means finished. There are around two dozen new kibbutzim, usually established by young Israelis and often not agricultural but based in urban areas.

"In order to recreate a Jewish character you had to reshape Jewish society and the kibbutz was going to do this," said Henry Near, 77, who left London in 1955 to join a kibbutz near Nahariya and went on to write a history of the kibbutz movement. His kibbutz, Beit Haemek, began to privatise itself several years ago.

"It works for those who want it to work. But people have become disillusioned or affected by the general zeitgeist. It is not easy to live on a kibbutz any more."

The Hebrew word kibbutz means "collective" or "gathering". A kibbutz is a collective settlement in which all members own a share of the wealth. After living costs are disbursed and health and welfare provided, any profits are reinvested into the settlement.

Today there are around 268 kibbutzim in Israel, where more than 117,000 people live. Most were founded before Israel was created in 1948. Where once they were largely agricultural, increasingly their residents work in industry and business, often employed off-site.

Hired labourers, frequently Thai workers, carry out menial tasks. Degania, the first kibbutz, founded in 1910, has become the latest to start paying salaries and charging for services.

Guardian