Page 24 - C.A.L.L. #35 - Fall 2012

Over the years, we have been fortunate to have welcomed countless visitors from all
over the world; Communards have visited our kibbutzim and come to our International

Communes Desk meetings to engage in a mutual sharing of community living visions and
experiences. Our most recent visitors from Germany, Kerstin (Kommurage
Community) and Patricia (Niederkaufungen Commune), embarked on a month-long tour
of Israeli intentional communities. They visited Kibbutz Lotan, Kibbutz Ravid, Kibbutz
Mishol, Kibbutz Harduf, Kibbutz Tzuba and an urban kibbutz in Holon.

The Kommuja network (of which both Kommurage and Niederkaufungen are members),
is an umbrella organization which incorporates 30 German communes, totaling around
500 members. The common principles of the network are mainly political –living
communally in order to foster solidarity, extolling libertarian, emancipatory, and
ecological ideas in order to offer an
alternative to the problematic nature
of capitalist society.

Every two years the network holds a
festival, attended by around 300

people, in order to help those wishing
to establish new communes or join
existing ones. In addition, every year
they organize an information tour,

Kerstin and Patricia present their communities at traveling from town to town, meeting
our International Communes Desk meeting young people and spreading the word.

Niederkaugfungen Commune was established in 1986, and Patricia has lived there for
the last 14 years. It is situated next to the town of Kassel, in the centre of the

country. Today, 60 adults and 20 children live in a community where the average age
of its members is around 45 years old.

Kerstin comes from a three-year old community called Kommurage. With only 8 adult
members and 2 children, Kommurage has
formed a partnership with 6 other
communes in the surrounding area – each
of these communes having between 5-12
members each. Although there is no
income sharing between the
communities, there is within each
commune. Monthly meetings are held and
common tasks are undertaken together,

as well as product exchanges between
the communes. Kerstin and Patrica and members of the desk

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