"Kibbutz" and "Children of the Kibbutz"

The world of the paperback the University of Chicago invites you to join us for this

series of 15 minute programs dedicated to the discussion of literary topics and the review of

significant paper bound books each weekly program will bring to the microphone a different

author authority or educator with his particular viewpoint towards the topic for discussion.

The book selected for today's discussion our kibbutz venture in Utopia

and the children of the kibbutz. Our guest is the author of these works Melford East Birol

professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago. Here is your discussion host from

the University of Chicago Robert C. Albrecht was just part of what is a

complaint.

The important characteristic of the keyboards is a way of life in which all

means of production as well as most of the

consumption goods are owned by the group and theoretically for the benefit and welfare of

the entire group. One of the important features of the keyboards in addition to its collective property

and the reason we want there is a system of collective education

where children are reared collectively and come in all dormitories rather than by their

parents in private households.

Why were these established in the modern state of Israel.

Well they were established of course before the state of Israel was declared. The first people it was

established in 1909 in a wasteland near the Sea of Galilee

and the kibbutz that we studied was founded in 1920 but it was the second key

but started in Israel about 11 years then elapsing between the first and the second.

They were started for a variety of reasons one of the reasons for the keyboards was to

leave Europe for what the Jews called the Diaspora communities

outside of Israel and to settle in a homeland of their own.

But this would account only for the immigration to Palestine as was called at that time not for

the people itself. Secondly they were interested in establishing

a just a way of life and a just way of life to

them meant a socialist way of life. The feeling which

they had at that time was that capitalist civilisation was an

exploitative civilisation and an opposition to exploitation they

wanted to establish a community in which all would be equal. And I think

the second ingredient then was this notion of egalitarianism and

which by implication means the absence of exploitation of one group by another.

A third and the last there are others but I think the third last important ingredient

was the notion of labor the dignity of labor the

labor as a means for self realisation and the

notion that one becomes truly human by

through work especially through work in the soil. So you've got the natural man there's

like there's a peculiar and only romantic notion but a primitive mystic notion here.

The man who works in the soil the primitive man is the natural man

and we who have lived in cities detached from nature and from the from the natural

sources of our being will return to the earth work in it

and thereby achieve dignity as human beings and I should add from their point of view

dignity as Jews because Jews of course for centuries in

Europe have been divorced from the law and had been primarily urban people.

I think these are the three ideological ingredients is a religious quality predominant

necessarily in these communities.

There are a number of federations that he would seem there is one religious that aeration which is the smallest of them

all. And it is religiously informed and importantly

in its charter. If you were to go to one of these you will see

young Jews with beards with skull caps who

observe. The various time we can get local laws they have

synagogues through public prayers three times a day and so forth. But

this federation includes probably under a number of people it

seems probably under 10. There are three other federations.

One is not religious in

the Federation itself as is neutral with respect to religion and some

individuals are and some are not religious. Using that term around the conventional sense

there is a second Federation which tends to be somewhat more positive

towards religion but there is an absence of organized religious institutions even in that

federation. According to the Federation which are key but

I was a member this federation is anti-religious. It

views clericalism as part of the

exploitative system of capitalism so that it has a political opposition to

religion and it also views the supernatural quality of religion

as antithetical to its basic scientific worldview and so that it has

an intellectual opposition to religion as well in short the members of the people that we studied are

anti-religious the children are raised without religion

though they study traditional Jewish literature such as the Bible they

are taught that the Bible is an important literary and historical document

but that the worldview implicit in this book has a worldview which

represents a primitive stage in human development which we have now outgrown

your primary purpose. As an anthropologist was to study what

aspect of these communities well our interests I say are because my wife was

with me and participated in the research. Our interest was in

the consequence of this educational system which we

call collective education. The consequences of the system for the

personality development of the children who are in it and I think you can

understand when anthropologist would be interested in this because from a cross-cultural

perspective if we look at societies around the world this is the most fairly unique.

Children are not reared by their parents. They do not live in the

homes of their parents. They live in a calm you know dormitories and are

reared by a nursery teachers and teachers. And

since the system is so different from our own we were interested in the

extent to which the personality of children reared in the system

would be similar to what we assume they would be different from the typical

Western personality if you like. You know I came to this from a kind of a

psychoanalytic or Friday and point of view and such notions as the

importance of the authority structure in the family which personality theory and

particularly cycle of the theory makes so much about authority structure in the

family the relationship between father and mother. And

the child's perception of that relationship and its influence on him and a whole host of problems

of this kind which we find in almost any society that anthropologists

have studied because however different these families are they do have these

patterns similar to our own. But this is entirely different of course and that's what we were primarily

concerned with.

One of the the two books that resulted from this long stay in Israel one is the

subtitled adventure in Utopia. The other one is focuses on the problem you just

describing with the education of the children. It is the people it's

really a form of utopian community does it stand up well against other

experiments of the same kind. I'm not asking I think whether they have achieved

utopia but whether they're their experiment is similar to other experiments.

You know that's I think it is similar in some dissimilar from others the keyboard some

suddenly did not like the title because to them utopia

connotes a society which cannot be envisaged or

at least cannot be achieved might be envisaged in the imagination. And they believe of

course and in this sense they are quite right they have achieved a viable society. And in that

sense if we take their definition of Utopia this title is a misnomer.

I was using the word utopia rather in a slightly different way by

utopia I meant. The implementation of a

society which begins in the first place in the

imagination of an individual or a group of individuals a type of society

which in fact does not exist and which people who adhered to

this idea attempt to implement and they have attempted and indeed have

achieved to a considerable extent in implementing this idea.

Now this society is similar to other kinds of utopian

societies that we know of in the 19th and even 20th century

America such as the united community in New York the Shaker community

in East Brook Farm and so forth. It is

somewhat different from all of these However in the degree to which it has

insisted upon comprehensive cooperation comprehensive come you know

living. And I think in that sense somewhat extreme

relative to these others.

One of the things which seems to have marked many of the utopian experiments particularly ones of

failed or lack of change.

On the other hand one that has marked many of the successful communities has been

continual change in adaptation which of these two alternatives has been the feature of

the key but I think the people it falls in between these two stools

some of the people seem have changed notably in some of even

the more basic features of their original charter for example. One of the important

features of the original key but any key buts was the notion of

self labor as the key would seem became larger it became

obvious that they needed more manpower. Nevertheless many of them

resisted hiring labor and the work was done by at it by working on the

Sabbath during holidays and so forth and also by recruiting children from the schools.

After 1948 when the state of Israel was declared there was an

influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe and from the Middle

East the people who had no jobs and there was considerable

pressure from the government for to have the key would seem higher these

workers and many of the key would seem did so claiming that this was their

national task. They keep books which we studied and all the key

would seem and that federation refused to do so saying that the importance

of egalitarianism and the importance of their opposition to exploitation

was an overriding consideration. And therefore despite the pressure from the government they

refused to hire outside labor. They have consistently refused to do so to this day but

many people seem have done so. This is one kind of change that others have introduced. I think there's

been two other dramatic changes given the original charter of the key but some of the key would seem

to have for example have taken children out of these comical

dormitories for the first five or six years during which period they are raised by their

parents only after that are they put back into the dormitories of the kibbutz we

studied and it's Federation has refused to do that. A feeling of these five or six years are

the crucial years in terms of certain kinds of personality theory they're quite right. A

third and I will I think important change and I will stop here.

Is the opposition to mechanization and particularly to any kind of

industrialization. The notion that work on the soil physical manual

labor agricultural labor is the true mark of human dignity. Now some of the

key would seem at a relatively early stage introduced industry into the

keyboards and there are some who become quite prosperous there is a plywood factory for example

and they keep boats near the Sea of Galilee that now engages in international trade of supply

would have been that successful.

One of the misconceptions which many people may have about the it would

seem and this whole state of Israel is the number of the proportion of the population

that lives now or has ever lived in the can it seems as if most of the people.

No it is a very small proportion. There are about 200000 members

of all the key would seem divided into six or seven federations and

the population of the state of Israel now is about two million.

So that is a very small percentage indeed. But the influence of the

keyboard's is much disproportionate to its numbers. The

former prime minister David Ben-Gurion is a member of Akiba it's a

member of many of the present Cabinet members are members of key would seem

and in general the influence not only in the political but in the

cultural sphere as well as much out of proportion to its actual

numbers.

The guest for today's discussion of his works kibbutz venture in Utopia and the

children of the kibbutz was Milford East spiralled professor of anthropology at the

University of Chicago. Your host for the world of the paperback is Robert C.

Albrecht assistant professor of English at the University of Chicago.

Next week William H McNeil a professor and chairman of the Department of History at the University of

Chicago will discuss his own book The Rise of the West

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