Abstract The profound transformation of the hityashvut ovedet (Labor Settlement) movement following the privatization processes of the late twentieth century has been extensively addressed in the literature. Most research has focused on the movement's organizational dimension, examining which practices the settlement continues to employ post-privatization. This introductory article seeks to expand this perspective by utilizing Erving Goffman's theory of ‘total institutions,’ which conceptualizes institutions as founded upon three pillars: organization, space, and community. This article points out that while the vast majority of kibbutzim and moshavim underwent an organizational privatization process, these settlements’ spatial and communal dimensions were transformed in varied ways. Consequently, in settlements that maintain geographical boundaries that distinguish them from their surroundings, and in those that have managed to preserve a unique sociocommunal mix, the moshav and kibbutz continue to sustain a distinct sociocultural way of life despite the organizational privatization.
Abstract This article examines the implications of changes in agriculture over the years on identity and culture in the Arava, a desert region in southern Israel where intensive agriculture has long shaped both local society and the environment. Drawing on ethnographic research, this article traces how residents’ environmental–agricultural imagination historically structured space and community, and how agricultural infrastructures have adapted to political, ecological, and economic pressures. It examines how early settlers framed their efforts to “make the desert bloom,” while highlighting the constraints imposed by national politics, environmental limits, and global markets. By combining the concepts of environmental–agricultural imagination and agricultural infrastructure, the article analyzes agriculture's role in producing place and identity and considers how the spread of solar energy may reshape the spatial and social dynamics of arid regions.
Abstract This article examines how the war that erupted on 7 October temporarily reconfigured relationships between agricultural migrant workers and their employers in kibbutzim and moshavim along Israel's frontiers. Using qualitative analysis of media coverage and firsthand insights, this article investigates how the shared vulnerability of workers and employers during the war exposed deeper transformations in the agricultural sector. Specifically, it highlights how processes of state withdrawal and the gradual erosion of national ideals of Hebrew labor produced a system in which migrant workers are both indispensable and invisible. While the war briefly fostered crisis-driven solidarity between local employers, migrant workers, and civil society, this solidarity remained highly situational and conditional. These findings contribute to a broader understanding of the precarity produced by neoliberal restructuring in peripheral agricultural communities, specifically kibbutzim and moshavim.
Abstract Jewish immigration from Latin America played a key role in kibbutzim during Israel's early years. Driven by Zionist youth movements, it was exceptional in scale and pioneering spirit in comparison with immigration from other Western countries. However, by the mid-1960s, global generational shifts, political and economic crises in Latin America, and the decline of Israel and the kibbutz movement's revolutionary ethos altered migration patterns. This shift deepened in the 1970s–1980s, when kibbutzim turned from absorbing permanent settlers into hosting Diaspora youth on short-term programs and temporary stays. These exhausted kibbutzim thus artificially inflated their populations, masking more profound demographic challenges. The study argues that this transition foreshadowed the kibbutzim's broader crisis from a demographic perspective—an aspect largely absent from research on immigration to kibbutzim and overlooked in studies on the kibbutzim's decline.
Abstract The article addresses the two inherent tensions marking the history of the kibbutz and the vast research that deals with it: whether the origin of the kibbutz and its development should be viewed as products of ideological conceptions or rather as the result of historical circumstances; and should the kibbutz be viewed as a communal way of life, whose very existence is its goal, or rather as a means toward achieving national and social aims. Its main contentions are: the kibbutz emerged and developed because of circumstances as opposed to ideological principles; it reached the pinnacle of the national ethos because it served as a means for achieving national aims during periods of national emergency, and lost much of its prestige once the difficult times were over; the kibbutz posed an obstacle to the Zionist left. Finally, the article refers to these issues in light of 7 October 2023.
