Page 21 - C.A.L.L. #27 - Summer 2006

the margins of the regular apartments, or in
an extra room in the enlarged houses, is a
washing machine. If you wander through the
living areas on a Saturday morning you will
be accosted by the smell of soap powder and
the sound of busy dryers. This odour swaps
the delightful fragrance of French toast on
Saturday morning, so characteristic of the
old-style, traditional kibbutz dining room.
Eli Avrahami is a veteran member of Kibbutz
Palmachim, a social scientist and a fellow of
Yad Tabenkin Kibbutz Research Institute. He is
co- editor of the Hebrew journal "Mifne – Forum
for Social Issues".
Kibbutz Palmachim is situated on the
Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv. It
was established in 1949 by a group of
young men and women who had served
voluntarily in Israel's War of Independ-
ence. The young settlers wished to work
in agriculture and fishing and build a
communal home. In Palmachim there are
presently about 260 members, 150 chil-
dren and a few residents who rent
apartments. There is no longer any fish-
ing, and the kibbutz makes its money
from some agriculture, a pre-cast concrete
factory and many salaries brought in by
members who work outside of the kib-
butz. The kibbutz has been privatized and
has a "social security network".
Palmachim is about to accept approxi-
mately 50 families from those who were
evacuated from the Gaza Strip. This is
seen as a positive step, creating certain
social and economic opportunities, but
not without certain inherent risks.
Changes and Privatization on Kibbutz
Palmachim
By Tzvi Zahavi, Kibbutz Palmachim
Palmachim's major crisis occurred when our
economic mainstay collapsed (ed: due to a
recession in the country) and no alternative
was found. We accumulated large debts and
couldn't see any way out of the situation. It
2121
2
211
was not a one-time phenomenon, but a proc-
ess that continued for several years, during
which time we did not conduct discussions
with the members in order to look for ways
to earn a living by developing new initia-
tives. Relationships between the members
became progressively more and more
strained, and at-
tempts to make
some changes
were met with
difficulties, dis-
agreements and
opposition.
Criticism di-
Establishing Palmachim
rected at the
management was received with intolerance,
inflexibility and intransigence. Construction
was almost totally frozen, we started to
make cutbacks due to the lack of funding and
this caused a lot of tension and anxiety. One
can not ignore the fact that as the public
treasury emptied out; private individuals ap-
peared with their private kitty suddenly
filling up, due to the existence of previously
undeclared external sources of funds. Severe
cracks appeared in the egalitarian ideology
and no leadership arose to analyze the situa-
tion and to involve the general public in the
problems, while at the same time truly lis-
tening to their feelings, and most
importantly drawing practical conclusions
which the new situation required.
The general feeling was that we had to com-
pletely change our whole life-style, and
urgently find sources of income before the
banks closed Palmachim's financial tap. In
addition to that, as a result of discussions
with many of the grown-up sons and daugh-
ters of Palmachim, it became clear to us, that
we would have to implement some major
changes, if we wanted them to return to live
on the kibbutz. At this stage, I personally
defined the situation as "Either make a fun-
damental change, or be left with a retirement
village".
At a certain stage, a team was chosen in or-
der to lead the process of change. The team
received professional advice from special-
ized consultants, and after much hard work,