Page 3 - C.A.L.L. #40 - Winter 2015

What’s In A Name?

The International Communes Desk of the Kibbutz Movement was founded in

1976, almost 40 years ago. This April the Board of the Desk met – looked back
and then looked forward. Guess what! The world has changed. We decided to

change our name to the Intentional Communities Desk.

The world of communes which

evolved from the cultural turmoil of
the late Sixties has morphed into
movements of intentional community

and cooperation. Cooperation and
cooperatives embody a modified

approach to the idea of “together”
as against the neo-Liberal mantra of
the “bottom line” and every

individual for himself/herself. Meeting of the Intentional Communities Desk
Communities and cooperatives, urban and rural, are the alternative to a mass

society of nuclear (or partially nuclear) families. The word “intentional” signifies
the idea of a conscious decision by individuals to join hands and invest part of

their life energy, together with like-minded others, in order to create and
fulfill themselves in a community which has a value-based message for the
surrounding society.

Currently, only a minority of the communities in networks such as the Global
Ecovillage Network and the North American Fellowship of Intentional

Community are collective in the format of 40 years ago. Eighty percent of the
th
kibbutz movement, the largest collective movement of the 20 Century, is no
longer collective. Most of the readers of C.A.L.L., the Communities At Large
Letter, do not live in communes in the sense that this word was used in the

1970’s. C.A.L.L. has become a call for community and cooperation, a call for
social and environmental justice, a call for a world in which community and
cooperation ensure a sustainable quality of life for all on Spaceship Earth.

What’s in a name? The Intentional Communities Desk continues to further that
vision. “Where there is no vision – the people become unruly”. (Proverbs 29: 18)

Michael Livni

3