Page 10 - C.A.L.L. #47 - Winter 2020/2021
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Kibbutz in the city? The healing mission
of Israel’s new communes.
Old model, new mission: With a modern pioneering zeal and a passion for
social justice, young Israelis are reimagining the kibbutz, planting scores
of collectives in disadvantaged neighborhoods around the country.
By Dina Kraft
Beersheba, Israel the place where I’m doing that. It’s also
The youthful man in cutoff shorts and important that I take these dreams and
sandals punches in the security code of a try to fulfill them together with friends,”
nondescript apartment building in the says the cutoff-clad Nir Sabo, who helped
center of this desert city, bounds up its found this kibbutz in 2005.
three flights of stairs, and announces,
“This is our kibbutz.” In the past two decades, some 220 urban
cooperatives have been established across
It’s a jarring declaration for anyone Israel, some in the form of kibbutzim and
familiar with Israel’s iconic kibbutzim – the communes with shared economies, others in
verdant, mostly agricultural socialist the shape of individuals or families who are
cooperatives that helped pioneer pre-state economically independent but live in the
Israel and define the country’s borders. same apartment buildings or neighborhoods
and see themselves as a unit.
Yet in this so-called urban kibbutz, 16
members live here in four apartments, Impact on society
including members with children; another While the cooperatives take different
14 members live in another building nearby, forms, they all share a mission as activists
and a smattering live in apartments in the committed to improving the education,
neighborhood. Members share not only social welfare, and social justice of the
living space, but some of their possessions, cities and towns where they live. In 2006
and pool their incomes. an umbrella organization called Eretz-Ir
was formed to help support the
They also share a modern mission: building cooperatives and encourage new ones in the
a rich communal life for themselves, and name of promoting social change.
doing so in a low-income, underserved This growing trend extends beyond Israel’s
urban setting in Israel’s so-called Jewish majority. There are also
periphery with the goal of improving life cooperatives made up of Arab citizens and
for local residents, specifically through Druze, and others with both Jewish and
education. Arab members. There are also
cooperatives made up specifically of young
“It’s important for me to live a life that is Ethiopian Jews.
full of meaning and feel like I’m doing
something to make a difference, and this is
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