ABSTRACT
Thirty-one years have passed since 1978 when I conducted my narrative study of Beit-Hashita (founded in 1928), and, as a result, became “a kibbutz scholar”—despite the fact that I had never belonged to a kibbutz community. The original work was published in English (1982), Hebrew (1983), and Japanese (1993) under the pseudonym Kibbutz Makom (place in Hebrew) in order to protect the privacy of the interviewees. The earliest newspapers’ reviews of the Hebrew edition, however, immediately identified the kibbutz as Beit-Hashita. Furthermore, since the disguise could not prevent the identification of the narrators by their own family and community, and the kibbutz members were quite satisfied with the authenticity of the work, it became superfluous to conceal its identity. Soon after the publication of the book in Hebrew, the kibbutz chose to be known by its proper name, Beit-Hashita.
