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To deal with attrition, social stagnation and economic competition, the kibbutzim had to open up. They accepted new members who were less committed ideologically and less bound by shared history. They took in the hordes of foreign volunteers who flooded Israel after the 1967 war. As the world was being ushered in, kibbutz members were gazing and venturing out, visiting the city, travelling abroad, watching TV. Their aspirations, tastes and calculations were being altered. Long-suppressed yearnings for individual autonomy and personal space began to surface, overwhelming the old slogans of togetherness and equality.
By the 1990s, virtually all kibbutzim had moved toward full-fledged capitalism, establishing individual wages, transferring ownership of the community's property to individual members, and renting kibbutz facilities to outsiders. In my former kibbutz, a wealthy American recently leased the old children's house where I grew up, turning it into a luxury apartment, complete with home theatre and a huge Jacuzzi.
By then, most kibbutzim had already turned away from communal sleeping. The move was in large part driven by women who grew up in the children's house and, having become mothers, refused to let their children experience that same system.
It is not a coincidence, I think, that my fondest memories of my daughter Maya's early years are of those times when she would wake late at night, from a nightmare or a toothache, get up in a daze, toddle over to our bedroom, crawl under the sheets and cuddle up at my side; warm, safe, sighing, sliding slowly back into sleep. I never had that. And neither did my parents. Is the goal of changing the world worth such sacrifice?
I don't know.