REUTERS
by Maayan Lubell
June 2, 2015

There are 274 kibbutzim in Israel and their population is growing rapidly

This year’s harvest was especially merry at Degania Alef, Israel’s first kibbutz, founded in 1910 on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. The community celebrated the birth of 11 children, its largest crop of babies in a quarter century. Twenty-five years ago kibbutzim, collective communities traditionally based on agriculture, seemed all but doomed. The pioneering socialist and Zionist spirit that drove the movement in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s ran head-on into the consumerist, free-market 1980s and came off worse. The kibbutzim were hit hard by financial crisis that gripped Israel in the mid-1980s and youngsters abandoned the communal dream and headed to cities. Kibbutzim found themselves graying and failing. But the last few years have seen a surprising turnaround, with young families seeking to escape the high cost of living and alienation they find in cities for a cheaper, rural lifestyle in a closely knit community. READ MORE