Kibbutz life – #002 – What is Kibbutz?
Posted by hupo on Saturday 24 February 2007
So what exactly is this Kibbutz?
A simple explanation would be, a community of people living together, sharing what they have, living as equal as humanly possible. A general meeting makes all the decisions and each member of the community has an equal vote on any issue.
“To each what they need, from each, what they can” was the main theme in this way of life.
Did it actually work?
I guess that depends on your outlook and definition of this way of life. But first let me tell the story and then you can decide for yourself.
My parents, who were founders of our Kibbutz, brought me from England at the age of 5. I had no say in the matter except “Mommy…. Daddy…. I want a cookie”. What I got for my efforts was a whole new way of life. We landed at a temporary place in the center of the country and stayed there while the first group went up North to create what was later to become my home for the rest of my life. Mothers with children stayed behind. We were just two kids of my age. We were taken daily to the local kids school by horse and cart. One day The horses got scared of something, panicked and I fell on my head on the ground, which might explain a lot to those who know me 
Another day I was sitting on a mule with my 5 year old friend when a wasp stung the mule and I….yes….fell on the ground, head first…… It was getting to be a painful habit.
Meanwhile the first huts were being built so we could all join the initial group up North.
On a wintery day, we drove up in an old truck to our new home. I don’t remember much except that I found myself knee deep in mud and they had to pull me out of my gumboots, to “dry land”. My gumboots stayed behind.
As we were just two kids they got some 20 more kids from broken homes and such, to make up a group we could grow up in. At the peak we were 22 or so and that was a big group!
We lived in a communal hut with a couple of grownups to take care of us. Our parents had their home but we only visited them between 16:00-20:00. We didn’t grow up with our parents. They took turns sleeping in our communal hut, to see that we were ok. We were. I’m not sure they were though. The idea was that the community is important, more than the family. We children belonged to the whole community and just happened to have two biological parents for 4 hours a day.
Saturday was the family day. Spending the whole day with our parents was something to look forward to.
Every Friday we used to get a little bag with 7 sweets in it. One for each day of the coming week. Some years later it went up to 14 and 21 and then it was just a bag-full, it was too much to count. We weren’t bored even though there were no toys around, computers were unheard of and haven’t yet been invented. I don’t think Bill Gates was born yet.
We had a rest period every day between 2pm and 4pm and we had to sleep! Those who didn’t were punished by having to sleep for two hours on Saturday at the expense of being with the parents. Oh, I mentioned most of the kids were from broken homes. They were adopted by kibbutz members and were as much family as possible under the circumstances.
….. to be continued ……
