ABSTRACT
“Belonging” was a core experience for people living on kibbutzim, the radical social experiment in communal living launched by East European Jewish immigrants to Palestine in the early 1900s. Built on values of communal ownership of property and equality of income and possessions, the kibbutz was a settlement where everything was shared among members of a collective. This culture of “we” was reinforced by the common efforts to bring forth fruit from land that was often barren, as well as the fight for survival against attacks by neighboring Arab militias. The latter half of the twentieth century, however, saw cultural and economic changes that led to the slow erosion of the “we” mindset as Israel transformed itself into a more capitalistic economy and individualistic society. This paper analyzes vignettes of Modern Hebrew literature related to the kibbutz, as illustrated in the work of writers who lived on kibbutz and started publishing around the time of the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. These authors reflect the transformation from the members’ firm sense of belonging to the collective to the later dislocation they experienced in the face of a radical shift in social and economic values.
