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The New Kibbutz
Matti Friedman
July 27, 2022

The kibbutz, one of the greatest ideas ever put into practice, has fallen on hard times. Having pioneered a new country and wrought a revolution in Jewish history, most of these communes no longer subscribe to radical Zionist egalitarianism and have resigned themselves to life as suburbs, leaving a hole at the center of the country’s consciousness that we haven’t managed to fill with anything better. I’m always happy to hear a pulse—like the few kibbutzim that have prospered and stayed socialist, or like the scrappy guerilla activists of the “urban kibbutz” movement, who pool resources and work for the common good but live in cities. For the past few years, I’ve been hearing about one unique evolution of the idea on a hill of grapevines near the border with Lebanon. Last week I drove up to visit. READ MORE