The Kibbutz Movement: A History, Crisis and Achievement, 1939-1995 v. 2

This volume continues the narrative account ofthe history of the kibbutz movement from the outbreak of the Second World Waronwards. This period included a number of dramatic and complex developments:the effects of the world war and the Holocaust on the kibbutzim and their youthmovements; the political struggles which led to the end of the British mandate;the War of Independence, including the role of the Palmach and the politicalcontroversy it engendered; the crises which followed the establishment of theState of Israel and the politics of the kibbutz movement in the early years ofindependence; and the kibbutzim’s gradual adaptation to their new position inIsraeli society and to the problems and challenges of a multi-generationalsociety in the late twentieth century.

Although the detailed narrative ends in 1977(when the Israeli political system, and the status of the kibbutz, underwent aradical change), it is followed by a detailed overview describing the manydevelopments which took place between 1977 and 1995.

 Much of the material is new in any language, andvirtually all is new in English. Throughout, economic developments, immigrationand agricultural settlement, political and ideological issues, and internalsocial developments are presented as interdependent and as vitally affectedby—and often affecting—the changing fortunes of the Jewish people, the Zionistmovement, and the Jewish community in Palestine/Israel. But the kibbutzim arealso presented as a special instance of a widespread social phenomenon:communal and co-operative societies.