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Title: Kibbutz Samar
Author: Meir Turniansky
Date: 1997
Language: en
Topics: Freedom, Israel, social centres
Source: Retrieved on 1 January 1999 from http://www.tao.ca/~freedom/kib.html
Notes: From Freedom, Autumn 1997

Meir Turniansky

Kibbutz Samar

I must admit that one of the main reasons (apart from being an anarchist

at heart) for which I read “Freedom” are the lively and varied reports

on international affairs. Reports on the situation in remote places such

as Indonesia, Ecuador and Paraguay always gave me a feeling that I am

correctly informed on the social developments in these places.

Therefore as a “Freedom” reader who lives in a Kibbutz I was somewhat

shocked by the poor representation of the situation in the Kibbutzim

today in the article: “end of Jewish utopia” (“Freedom” 6^(th) of

September). This article quotes outdated sources from 50 years ago.

While being bleak and unclear it gives facts which are either wrong or

distorted. I would like to try to give more ample and correct

information on the Kibbutzim then and now.

First of all the Kibbutz movement was never Jewish-Arab but based

purely, like the rest of the Zionist movement, from it’s beginning in

the turn of the century, on Jewish immigrants from east Europe who were

influenced by marxist ideas. Anarchism was not really part of the game

as Russia was revered as the almighty father (the main title in the

kibbutzim newspaper on the day of Stalin’s death in 1953 said: “the sun

of nationalities has turned off”).

The Kibbutzim adopted a strict communal lifestyle which interweaved with

the then vigilant (as now in a way) situation of Jewish settlement in

Israel. All private property was banned, even clothes were communal. The

Kibbutz members lived in rooms which had virtually nothing in them apart

from a bed. All decisions were made by the members assembly in a

democratic way including the names of the first babies! Eating was (and

still is) done in a dining hall with a central kitchen, laundry was also

communal and so was the kindergarten. The children did not sleep at home

with their parents but in a dormitory in the kindergarten/school with

one parent in shift guarding them. The idea in these central/communal

facilities was also to liberate women from the endless toil of the

housework by shifting it to central facilities thus also making it more

efficient. After all there is hardly any doubt that it is more efficient

and economical to cook for a few hundred people in one central kitchen

or laundry than each family for itself. The members were requested to

work a similar amount of hours a day and received their consumption

needs according to a general budget or allocation decided concerning

health, housing etc. All the profits and the assets belong to the

community which decided how to use it, there were no private bank

accounts. All budgets were similar thus creating a society where people

were (materially) equal.

From the period of the beginning of the century until the 1980’s about

300 different Kibbutzim were built. They were hailed as containing the

crème de la crème of Israeli society (the state was established in

1948), many artists but also leaders, and generals of Israel came from

the Kibbutzim even though they contained only 3% of the population in

Israel. Indeed many saw the kibbutz as a utopia at that time, and it

became the most sociologically researched society in the world. The

nature of the society was absolutely secular excluding a few religious

kibbutzim. Unfortunately apart from one attempt there was never any real

effort to merge with the arab population in Israel. The kibbutzim took

what is revered to as a “mild left wing stance”, while advocating peace

and co-existence with the Arabs within and without Israel, they remained

strictly arrogantly Zionist, therefore never willing to compromise on

the Jewish only character of Israel.

The article claims “that the last of the kibbutz has given up”. This is

again only partially true (as is the picture drawn by the too short

article in the “Raven” on new life to the land), the thing which has

been given up by the last kibbutz is the communal dormitory of the

children and not the whole ideology which contains much more than that.

It is true that the kibbutzim are changing. Israel has grown and became

a much richer capitalistic Americanized and less ideological country.

The kibbutzim whose fate was bound with Israeli society begun to change

also. At first a private kettle was allowed in the rooms then furniture

then books kitchens and all the other wonders of private property. Today

a house of a family in a kibbutz looks just like a typical house in the

city. The dining hall still exists but members can choose if they wish

to cook at home or eat in it. All property is allowed and is bought

according to a members budget where he can even create his own credit

account. The communal lodging of the children has been renounced and the

children sleep at home. Many central facilities still exist: the

launderette, the central office which manages the managing, accountancy

and governmental paperwork for all. Many Kibbutzim are taking steps

towards becoming a capitalist society, meaning:

private accounts for members which will account to every expense of

the member including those which previously were not accounted for such

as meals, electricity etc.

The gradual leasing of the kibbutz assets to the members until their

final purchasing by the members.

Nomination of boards of directories to manage the kibbutz.

Differentiation of budgets between the different members according to

the responsibility of their work meaning: salaries.

Indeed here the article is right, many Kibbutzim are not a utopistic

society anymore but a society in transit towards a rural town on the

scale of a small village. Still the Kibbutzim were never “pioneers of

anarchism” except a few rare examples which I feel one of them is the

kibbutz I live in which like some others still maintains it’s

revolutionary way of life but in a different way than the original

kibbutz.

The kibbutz in which I live (it is called Samar) has an ideology of non

intervention with the members life which remarkably reminds anarchist

theories. The main points of social “order” here are:

Everybody decides for himself where and how much he works.

There is no budget, everyone draws cash as he wishes.

decisions are reached only by dialogue or the assembly.

There are hardly any committees to monitor internal affairs as in

other Kibbutzim.

All facilities e.g. kitchen, office etc. are open all the times —

there are no locks anywhere.

These features or customs of our life style are possible because here

lives a small group of people which decided it wants to live this way.

Of course this requires much self control from the member since this

whole system is based on the fact that people will consider the communal

property, money and works to be done as their own and therefore will

work well and spend the money sparingly, but all is done according to

their decision. The belief is that this freedom will lead to better

results than the usual systems of control and coercion societies usually

use. Up to today things are working fine, this place is prospering and

has a strong social spine. There are about 150 residents living here

including 80 members. We grow dates and vegetables and have a dairy farm

and some tiny factories. Maybe the most interesting thing regarding

“Freedom” readers about this place is the fact that you will not find

here more than five people who know who Kropotkin was. The word

“anarchy” is hardly ever mentioned, and is sometimes even abused in it’s

negative misleading conception (equal to just one big mess where nobody

cares about anything). This place emerged as an anarchistic society

without people planning it ideologically. The healthy society here is

more a result of people from well-to-do houses being fed up of the

rotten systems they grew up in (many of them were raised in old and

stagnated kibbutzim) having an opportunity to act freely and manage

their own lives from A to Z as a small desolate rural place like Samar

makes possible.

I feel that in Samar it is proven that true anarchy can exist and

benefit the people who practice it. People here are always willing to

defend the way of life we live even if it means restraining themselves

since eventually they do prosper and enjoy a good deal of freedom.

Readers who would like to contact us to learn more about Samar or to

come and volunteer here are invited to write to:

Meir Turniansky

Kibbutz Samar

Doar Na Hevel Eilot

Israel 88815

or at e-mail: samar-accounts@samar.ardom.co.il

Meir Turniansky