The Metamorphosis of the Kibbutz

This volume focuses on today’s kibbutz and the metamorphosis which it has undergone. Starting with theoretical considerations and clarifications, it discusses the far-reaching changes recently experienced by this setting. It investigates how those changes re-shaped it from a setting widely viewed as synonymous to utopia, but which has gone in recent years through a genuine transformation. This work questions the stability of that ＂renewing kibbutz＂. It consists of a collective effort of a group of specialized researchers who met for a one-year seminar prolonged by research and writing work. These scholars benefitted from resource field-people who shared with them their knowledge in major aspects of the kibbutz’ transformation. This volume throws a new light on developmental communalism and the transformation of gemeinschaft-like communities to more gesellschaft-like associations.

Contributors are: Havatselet Ariel, Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Miriam Ben-Rafael, Sigal Ben-Rafael Galanti, Yechezkel Dar, Orit Degani Dinisman, Yuval Dror, Sylvie Fogiel-Bijaoui, Alon Gal, Rinat Galily, Shlomo Gans, Sybil Heilbrunn, Michal Hisherik, Meirav Niv, Michal Palgi, Alon Pauker, Abigail Paz-Yeshayahu, Yona Prital, Moshe Schwartz, Orna Shemer, Michael Sofer, Menahem Topel, and Ury Weber.

Eliezer Ben-Rafael was a member of Kibbutz Hanita for 20 years. He is Professor Emeritus at Tel-Aviv University, and Past-President of the International Institute of Sociology and of the Israeli Association of Sociology. He has also obtained the Landau Prize for Life Achievement in Sociology. His works include Jewish Identities (2001), Is Israel One? (2006), The Kibbutz on Ways Apart (2009), Ethnicity, Religion and Class in Israel (2009/2017), Handbook of Israel: Major Debates (2017), and Multiple Globalizations: Linguistic Landscapes of World-Cities (2018).