Kibbutz קיבוץ

The first kvutza was Degania, where the Jordan leaves the Kinneret, in 5670: a dozen young people from Russia who had come with the Second Aliyah. The plan was not economic but a matter of outlook: to work one's own land with one's own hands, without hired labour, and to divide everything equally.

How it was arranged. No one owned anything: not land, not money, not a house. The assembly assigned the work and decided everything else, from buying a tractor to who should study. In many kibbutzim the children slept not with their parents but in a children's house, all together; this was later given up, but for half a century it was the rule.

Attitude to faith. Most kibbutzim were founded by non-religious people, and the Sabbath there was a day of rest rather than the Sabbath. But there were religious kibbutzim too—their own movement, their own settlements, where they sought how to join a common economy with full halakhah; questions such as milking cows on the Sabbath were taken seriously and settled by rabbis.

What it became. There were never many kibbutzim—and far more officers, writers and ministers came out of them than their share of the population would suggest. In time almost all went over to paid work and private housing: common ownership lasted two generations. As a plan the kibbutz ended; as a mark on the country it remained.