Page 19 - C.A.L.L. #44 - Fall 2018

Urban kibbutzim plant

seeds for improving

city life

The old socialist model gets a modern twist as intentional communities make educational
and social inroads in underprivileged Israeli neighborhoods.

Abigail Klein Leichman, Israel 21c

Guy Gardi, center, speaking at an event in the community garden built by members of Kibbutz Beit
Yisrael for local residents. Photo: courtesy

Guy Gardi, a founding member of 25-year-old urban Kibbutz Beit Yisrael in the southern
Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo Aleph, doesn’t consider himself a pioneer like the founders
of the nearly 100-year-old Kibbutz Ein Harod in the Jezreel Valley, where he grew up.

Those original egalitarian communes (kibbutz means “gathering” or “collective”) struggled to
establish fertile farms in long-barren soil, while today’s urban kibbutz is an intentional

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