ABSTRACT
This chapter describes misconceptions about the nature of the kibbutz and outlines the size, origin, and state of Kibbutz Vatik's system and examines the ideology and attitudes of the members of what has been considered the most ideologically homogeneous kibbutz federation, ideological diversity. The historical development of the Kibbutz Vatik— today a stable, well-defined settlement— one cannot ignore the influence of the conditions affecting European Jewry at the turn of the century. The elements of persecution, alienation, narrowness of life, powerlessness, and suspicion of progress grew in the early 1900s in the minds of many Jewish youth, and together with influences of the German counterculture and Marxism. Alienation meant that although many Jews lived in stetls, which were fairly close-knit communities, they were continually uprooted. The chapter examines Vatik's movement from "bund" to "commune" in the terms of Talmon-Garber1, a noted kibbutz sociologist.
