Page 22 - C.A.L.L. #27 - Summer 2006

which from time to time drew slanderous ac-
cusations, the proposed changes were
approved by the legally required majority,
and also received the stamp of approval from
the Registrar of the Cooperative Societies.
The proposal included changing one of the
most fundamental conventions: saying Yes to
differential salaries. We had never imagined
that this would happen. The process of the
change involved placing the responsibility for
one's livelihood on each individual. We put in
place a social security network and commu-
nity taxes in order to ensure the continuing
existence of education, health-care services,
mutual assistance and a few other details
that stemmed from the move away from the
traditional value system.
I won't attempt to relate to all the details and
all the unsolved problems. The process of
change has not yet ended, and it requires
continuing communication within the com-
munity, comprehensive information and
explanations which must reach every indi-
vidual, every family, the children and the
youth. We have to hold discussion groups to-
gether with counselors and consultants. For
sure, we have lost some of the beautiful
things we had in the past, but some of them
were lost well before the big change. The fact
that people are focused mainly on their own
private lives and that of their families, is not
something that has occurred recently as a re-
sult of the change. The members of Kibbutz
Palmachim, which is now defined as a "new-
style kibbutz", have an obligation to continue
to search for the balance between social to-
getherness, and the concern for the
individual and his problems, and all of that
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has to be connected to the livelihood, and
there is nothing new in that. We will have to
keep working on social solidarity, we will
have to nurture it as a precious asset, and not
relinquish it. Moses said, "Man doth not live
by bread only" and the Sages of the Talmud
phrased it as, "If there is no flour, there will be
no Torah (Learning) and if there is no Torah,
there will be no flour", and Hillel the Elder
said, "If I am not for myself – who will be for
me? And if only for myself, what am I? And if
not now, when?"
We must continue to look for a balance. A
healthy community, just like every family,
must strive and search for the balance, be-
cause imbalance no doubt will cause damage.
Summary
Privatization is not a vision. Palmachim was
thrown into this necessity. It is a result of
the old system failing, and the need to try
out a new system. The reasons for the failure
of the old system have not been examined in
Palmachim, and there has been no open pub-
lic self-criticism. It is important to analyze
the past system, in order to give the new sys-
tem a chance to succeed. We must re-
examine our goals, define and create a new
realistic vision. It must be a vision with a
good chance of success, which gives us hope.
It must include components of demographic
growth, social and economic development
including mutual assistance. A realistic vi-
sion would be to create a better future for
the people who chose in the past and will
choose in the future to live together, not only
to live in the privatized territory of Kibbutz
Palmachim. This is particularly important in
light of the complex process of legally hand-
ing over apartments to members and dividing
up the estate. Let us not make mistakes. Let
us not dismantle something that is whole
and beautiful, into parts where any connec-
tion between them is purely coincidental.
Tzvi Zahavi, a founding member of Kibbutz
Palmachim, was in the past a ceramics teacher
and educator. He is still active in the local ar-
chaeological museum which he directed.