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Less than 60 km south of Tel Aviv, between the towns of Kiryat Malakhi and Ashkelon, is one of the most emblematic places of the history of Israel, in the northern part of the Negev desert. In 1939, it became home to the Negba kibbutz, a collective farm originally controlled by the Hashomer Hatzair, a leftist Zionist movement originated in Poland.
Encouraging settlement in ancient Palestine, under the British mandate, was part of the strategy designed by Ben-Gurion, the leader of the independence movement. The idea was to raise funds abroad and inspire Jewish immigration, constructing residential and production units that could become the embryos of the future state.
Mikhail Frunze/Opera Mundi
Children in kibutz Negba, located less than 60 kilometers south of Tel Aviv, between the towns of Ashkelon and Kiryat Malakhi
These agricultural colonies, however, were to follow the cooperative model that inspired many sectors of the European socialism, where private property or salaries did not exist. All kibbutz residents would be producers and the kibbutz would be responsible for both investments and the assessment of its inhabitants’ activities. A declaration made by the Jewish Karl Marx inspired the endeavor: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. In this case, to each according to the size of his family.
The Negba joined the Zionist mystique because there a crucial battle of the first Arab-Israeli war was fought, when independence had been recently declared. “The kibbutz was at a decisive crossroad for the Egyptian troops who advanced, since its control would give access to the road that leads to Tel Aviv,” says Avshalom Vilan, born in Negba 62 years ago and son of the man who commanded the Jewish resistance in the location.
“Our facilities were destroyed during the combats that lasted three months, but Negba soldiers, armed with rifles and pistols, stopped the enemy until reinforcements arrived. It was a heroic and strategic victory. “
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Vilan still lives on the kibbutz, with his wife Naomi and two sons. He gets emotional at the museum that recalls the 1948 confrontation, where an old army tank is exposed as a war relic, and the tower is peppered with bullets and has never been restored. He smiles again during the tour by the blocks of residences, the dairy facilities, the areas of cultivation and the educational workshops.
Estructure
The Negba kibbutz currently has 600 residents in 1200 hectares. Its ventures include raising chickens and dairy cattle, planting vegetables and fruits, plus two factories to industrialize dairy that have another kibbutz as partner. It also gets paid for leasing a company that had its management passed on to third parties.
Mikhail Frunze/Opera Mundi
Only a small proportion, less than 30%.,of the residents work at one of these productive plants. After the reform of the national system of kibbutzim in 2004, these workers are paid for their services. But all are asset owners, receiving dividends proportionally to how long they’ve been part of the community.
“The board is elected by the members of an assembly, and has to account for the revenues and expenses, apart from proposing how much will be used in new investments and the portion that can be distributed among the colonists,” explains Vilan.
“But nobody has anything to do with what one does outside the kibbutz. In the past, we had to give up wages received from external contracts or even gifts received from relatives living in other countries. “
Back then, the collectivist idea covered all aspects in the life of these farms. In Negba, until the beginning of the century, there was a bunkroom house where all the children slept. They didn´t live with their parents, but in a kind of children’s society under the care of kibbutzniks chosen for this mission. They could visit their families, attend birthdays, be with relatives on the nights of Shabbat and holidays. But the minute they stopped being breastfed, they were transferred to community interaction.
Complex medical services and higher education, besides the purchase of goods and equipment, were practically the only services that colonists sought in the outside world. Apart from that, the collective farms functioned as radically egalitarian small towns. No one had the right to possess something that the other did not have. “The kibbutz would decide when, for example, it was time to buy a TV,” says Vilan. “Once they did the math, if there were enough resources, all households would receive the same device. If the money wasn´t enough, no one would get one.”
The kibbutzim, besides being pioneers of the Jewish colonization in Palestine (the first was created in 1909), turned into tools for planning the production in the field, gaining increased importance after the founding of Israel and until the 80s. From the beginning, almost all land belonged to the State, which granted licenses for its use. Collective farms benefited from these concessions, and were an alternative to the system of small farms, typical of certain capitalist economies that have gone through agrarian reform, and the private concentration in hands of a few landowners.
Crisis
The model went into crisis during the 70s. It was the first stage of the crisis, as part of a political conflict that would undermine society’s trust in it. With the rise of the Zionist right, supported by the vote of the Sephardic Jews, the kibutzniks became the obvious targets for anyone who wanted a caricature of the rich and privileged Ashkenazi. Menachem Begin, winning candidate in the 1977 elections, running for conservative party Likud, came to call them “millionaires with swimming pools.”
Mikhail Frunze/Opera Mundi
Avshalom Vilan, born in Negba, kibbutz which currently brings together 600 inhabitants in 1200 hectares
The second step of the decay was economic. In the early 80s, stimulated by the rising inflation, many farms sought bank loans to buy new assets, expand old businesses or simply to pay old debts. The money was devalued so fast it seemed like a good deal: when it was time to pay the bill, its real value had plummeted. When the government decided to face the problem, in 1985, many skeletons fell out of the closet.
Subsidies for electricity and water consumption were cut, the generous credit lines abolished. The banks, broken, ended up being taken over by the State to be privatized under the watchful eyes of who was financing the exit from the crisis, the United States and International Monetary Fund. All debts were consolidated and charged. The kibbutzim were in dire straits.
To survive, many had to sell their enterprises. Several became simple residential condominiums in the countryside. Hundreds of residents renounced their colonialist positions and changed their activities. Those who managed to get out of the storm, changed its internal rules to contain evasion.
Transformation
The consolidation of these changes came nine years ago. Avshalom Vilan, then parliamentary by the Meretz (a left Zionist party, heir of the Mapam and the Hashomer), voted in favor of the reforms that instituted salaries, abolished the ban on individual properties (except land), released construction rights and increased the hiring of temporary workers. Critics call this process the privatization of collective farms.
Mikhail Frunze/Opera Mundi
Machinery for the production of milk in Kibbutz Negba, which also has growing areas and educational workshops
Each family, through these measures, gained the right to choose where their children would study, which equipment they wished to acquire or what to do with their savings. Residents now pay an administration fee for the maintenance of the farm, according to their income, and take care of their own expenses. The days of egalitarianism were finished.
“We could weather this or be swallowed by the decline,” argues Vilan, now General Secretary of the Federation of Farmers of Israel. “We are no longer the soldiers of the Zionist socialist revolution, like our parents believed. We continue, however, to be the strong arm of Israeli agriculture. “
Only 2% of the population lives in the 267 kibbutzim in the country, but account for 50% of agriculture, and 6% of the industrial production. If we do the math differently: these 140,000 settlers are responsible for 8% of the national GDP, which means that their productivity is four times higher than the overall economy.
Translation: Kelly Cristina Spinelli