LIFE IN ISRAEL

CUSTOM FLORAL DESIGNS
By Jackie

Exotic and very unusual designs. Specializing in silk
floral arrangements for your every need. Fantastic
savings on silk trees.

FREE IN-HOME CONSULTATION
855-0807
Contact Jackie Schwartz

CUSTOM
MIRRORS
BY

formerly

MACH

t 9 1 e: 1 SI IlS
GOXS c,
CZ

GLASS FURNITURE
ETCHED GLASS
CUSTOM RAILINGS SHOWER ENCLOSURES

Get 3
KODAK COLOR
Enlargements
for the price of 2, from
KODAK

AND
Get 20% OFF from as

Enlargements from 8" x 10" to 16" x 24".
Offer good only October 1-31.

Order three same-size, same-finish KODAK Color Enlargements
and get the third one free. Use different pictures if you want. But
the size and format of the originals must be the same. Made
from your favorite film negatives, slides, or color prints.

1361-Crest Photo

6698 Orchard Lake Road
in the West Bloomfield Plaza
851-5840 visa*Mastercard*AmaExpa

38

FRIDAY, OCT. 2, 1987

Kibbutz Youth Challenge
Egalitarian Ideology

CARL ALPERT

Special to The Jewish News

H

aifa — For years the
critics have been
forecasting the col-
lapse and demise of the kib-
butz movement under eco-
nomic and social pressures of
changing times, and for years
the kibbutzim have confound-
ed the critics by showing an
amazing ability to adapt to
new conditions without sur-
rendering any of the truly
basic elements of the collec-
tive settlements, which have
become a proud hallmark of
the best in Israel.
Most obvious has been the
gradual shift from
agriculture to industry, much
of it high technology in
nature. The movement took a
severe buffeting in Israel's re-
cent economic storms, but has
weathered the crisis and has
emerged chastened and
perhaps strengthened.
The new challenge to the
survival of the kibbutzim in
their present form comes on
the social and human level.
The intense self-criticism now
going on in the kibbutzim is
a . healthy symptom of a
dynamic body.
The nature of the problem
can be summed up briefly:
kibbutz youth are not
satisfied with the ideology
which fortified previous
generations, and are today
loking for a new ideology
which they find relevant to
them.
Moshe Kerem, of Kibbutz
Gesher Haziv and director of
university programs at
Oranim, the kibbutz
teachers' college, is con-
sidered one of the leading
educators of the movement.
He was quick to confirm
that the problem exists, and
in urgent form. Kibbutz
youth, even those from units
on the extreme left, are no
longer interested in Marxist
principles. They accept the
need for social responsibility,
but socialism as an expressed
ideology and as a banner
around which to gather, has
no attraction for them.
Indeed, many of them
charge their parents with be-
ing hypocrites and of continu-
ing to preach socialist
egalitarianism even while
they know that it no longer
exists in the kibbutzim in its
original pristine forms.
Kibbutz youth also find
sterile secularism unsatisfy-
ing, and are looking for
spiritual anchors. Some seek

Growing tomatoes: Most kibbutzim have shifted from agriculture to

industry. Will the ideological shift be as smooth?

it in the various cults; others
turn to orthodoxy, although
Kerem felt that no more than
about 200 country-wide had
followed this path, a far cry
from the rumors of a flood of
reversions to orthodoxy. The
trent is indeed for religion to
creep into the kibbutzim. Bar
and bat mitzvah, for example,
have become religious
ceremonies. In Gesher Haziv,
about a third of the residents
now fast on Yom Kippur.
Shabbat and holidays are
beginning to take on new
meaning.
What sounded the true
alarm was realization of the
fact that about 50 percent of
the children of the kibbutz
abandon their kibbutz at
some stage after their army
service. The proportion of
those even leaving the coun-
try is about the same as that
of their social and economic
peers in the population as a
whole, and that is not low.
Some of the die-hard Marx-
ist socialists of the older
generation are still fighting a
rearguard battle for socialism
and secular humanism. The
more sanguine of the
veterans realize that times
have changed, and their
young people with them. The
kibbutz, too, must change
under inexorable pressures.
It was 30 and 40 years ago
that idealistic Israeli youth,
coming from urban bourgeois
families, flocked to the kib-
butzim. Their elderly parents
are now passing on and be-
queathing large sums of
money to their grown
children, who are the pillars
of the kibbutzim. This situa-
tion is upsetting the whole
principle of egalitarianism in
the kibbutz. "We are speak-

ing of thousands of cases,"
Kerem added.
Fortunately, there is a
tolerance toward change in
the kibbutz, and many radical
alterations are. expected. The
kibbutz may yet have new
roles to play in the Israel of
the future.

1

""ii IN BRIEF

Population
Of Israel Up

Tel Aviv (JTA) — The
population of Israel is
estimated at 4,375,000 of
whom 3,590,000 are Jews, ac-
cording to figures released by
the Central Bureau of Statis-
tics last week.
The total population was up
by 1.4 percent since
September 1986 and the Jew-
ish population increased by
1.1 percent. About 12,000
new immigrants arrived dur-
ing the year, compared to
9,200 the previous year.
According to the Bureau,
nearly two million Israelis —
45 percent — live in 11 cities
of 100,000 population or
more. Jerusalem is the
largest with a populations of
about 477,000 persons, follow-
ed by Tel Aviv with 318,000
and Haifa with 223,000.

Black Leaders
Visit Israel

New York — Twenty
American black leaders from
six states returned from their
ten-day visit to Israel with
greater understanding of "the
tremendous complexity" of
the Middle East conflict and
resolved to strengthen black-
Jewish relations.

