The Kibbutz in Israel

« In the beginning was the kibbutz… »

The first kibbutz, a few dates :

  • 1909 : The kibbutz was a community way of life that expanded in Palestine and then in Israel.
  • 1940 – 1950 : Industrial activities began to be developed over there. These community villages had between 150 and 1,200 members. The members of these villages were called ‘Haverim.
  • 1990 : The kibbutz took a liberal turn. A large majority of them brought out employment and individualized payment of expenses for their ‘Haverim. Therefore they lost their primary purpose of creating a fairer and a more human society devoid of any workforce. For a handful of resistance fighters and reformers, this shortcoming needed to be corrected. Hence in 1987, the urban kibbutz was their response to this situation.
  • 2010 : The Kibbutzes still represented 10% of Israeli industrial production, 40% of its agricultural production and 6% of its GDP.

“And there was the urban Kibbutz…”

The Urban Kibbutz since 1987 :

The urban kibbutz is a new way of living and working in a kibbutz which has been steadily developing in Israel since 1987. Today there are more than 220.

What is an urban kibbutz ?

The income of the urban kibbutz comes from the secondary or tertiary sector. Each urban kibbutz sets up a conventional agreement so as to agree on the amounts of the pooling stemming from the profits generated by the kibbutz’s companies and/or the incomes from the salaried or self-employed members. The pooling, which can range from 10% of all profits and incomes, is put into the kibbutz bank account and spent for the collective needs of the kibbutz (food, housing, education, health, unemployment, insurance and supplementary pension, etc).

Urban kibbutzes, as their name indicates, settle in urban areas to help solve some ur- ban issues (promiscuity, poverty, delinquency, exclusion, etc).

Each urban kibbutz expands and finances one or several psycho-social and educational plan as well as humanitarian actions.

Claude Berger, a multi-faceted personality, has been spreading out the idea of the urban kibbutz and the relevance of its export in France since 2008.

Urban Kibbutz « Mishol ». Nazareth Illit. Israël

In 2020, the members of the urban and traditional kibbutz represent less than 1% of the Israeli population. However, if you want to live in a kibbutz, you have to wait for a very long time because the waiting lists are overbooked.

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About the Paris Kibbutz :

“Paris Kibbutz” is the first existing kibbutz, of the “rurban” type. It is also the name of the non-profit association whose goal is to promote a way of life inspired by the classic kibbutz and the urban kibbutz : the “rurban kibbutz”. This association was founded in July 2018.

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