Page 15 - C.A.L.L. #37 - Winter 2013/2014

Degani and Kark contribute with interesting profiles of six Christian communes in Israel
– shedding light on their past, present and predicted future. This is followed by another

double-act, which sounds rather like the name of a Lawyer’s office, Katz and Lehr.

I reviewed their new book on the same research topic in the last issue of C.A.L.L., and

Katz is still talking to me, so I must have liked his work. This paper addresses the topic
that most bothered me about the Hutterites – the status of women in their society. They
st
are sexist on a level that is hard to comprehend with our supposedly enlightened 21
century sensibilities. They occupy a significant part of the worldwide family of communal

experiments, a least numerically - and yet the heterogeneity is stark.

It seems to me that though Katz and Lehr do accept that there is no gender equality in

Hutterite society, they continually look for the places in which women do exert influence,
or emphasize the signs of change over time and express their optimism for the future.
It's a cup half-full approach, as opposed to criticizing the subjects of their studies

(which they go to great pains to stress that it should not be taken for granted that the
Hutterites have agreed to participate in their research).

Michal Palgi opens the final section of the book which features articles related to the

kibbutz. Her research also concentrates on gender and the juxtaposition of these two
articles one after the other helps to highlight the contrast between gender issues on
kibbutz and gender issues on the Hutterite colonies. Far from glorifying the heady days

of the Kibbutz, nevertheless Palgi does recognize the successes in kibbutz society (at
least officially there was strict gender equality, if not in practice). She explains how the
changes in kibbutz (privatization) affect women more than men. This is interesting and

important work - exploring gender roles and related issues within communities.

The book concludes with articles from Maria Folling-Albers and Eliezer Ben-Rafael.
The former presents an engaging exploration of the kibbutz education system and what

it can lend to the theory and practice of education in western societies, whilst the latter
looks at the changes that have swept the kibbutz. His summary, that "one may see in
kibbutzims' renewal process a conscious sacrifice of central tenets in return for new

material and social prospects", sums things up rather well. His final question of ‘What
does the future hold?’, is the stand-out question which permeates every 50-cents-a-page
of this book.

Anton Marks

Disclaimer: I am personally acquainted with nearly all of the contributors to this book,
including the editors. In theory, there are two ways that this review could have panned

out: 1) Showing undue bias by being overly complimentary about this book 2) Being uber
critical and thus contributing to me eating alone at the next communal studies
conference.

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