Kibbutzim have recently gone through far-reaching changes that came up to no less than a metamorphosis. This volume investigates this transformation and what it teaches about developmental communalism, from utopian gemeinschaft-like communities to more gesellschaft-like associations.

Ben-Rafael shows how the crisis brought together a general pro-change Zeitgeist with the interests of the kibbutz's stronger social segments and individuals to produce widespread changes and the fragmentation of kibbutz reality as a whole. The book's findings are based on a large-scale research investigation (1991-1994) headed up by Ben-Rafael that included twenty research studies and involved the participation of researchers from diverse social-science disciplines.

In Imagining the Kibbutz, Ranen Omer-Sherman explores the literary and cinematic representations of the socialist experiment that became history’s most successfully sustained communal enterprise. Inspired in part by the kibbutz movement’s recent commemoration of its centennial, this study responds to a significant gap in scholarship. Numerous sociological and economic studies have appeared, but no book-length study has ever addressed the tremendous range of critically imaginative portrayals of the kibbutz. This diachronic study addresses novels, short fiction, memoirs, and cinematic portrayals of the kibbutz by both kibbutz “insiders” (including those born and raised there, as well as those who joined the kibbutz as immigrants or migrants from the city) and “outsiders.” For these artists, the kibbutz is a crucial microcosm for understanding Israeli values and identity. The central drama explored in their works is the monumental tension between the individual and the collective, between individual aspiration and ideological rigor, between self-sacrifice and self-fulfillment. Portraying kibbutz life honestly demands retaining at least two oppositional things in mind at once—the absolute necessity of euphoric dreaming and the mellowing inevitability of disillusionment. As such, these artists’ imaginative witnessing of the fraught relation between the collective and the citizen-soldier is the story of Israel itself.

This book examines the changes in many kibbutz factories which have recently transformed from socialist entities, with egalitarian and cooperative relationships, to hierarchical and market-driven structures. Focusing on five case studies from an ethnographic perspective, the book explores the reasons for this organizational change and examines its ideological, social, and economic causes. Ranging from organizational culture as a tool for economic success to the cooperative clan lifestyle and its organizational experience for improving human life and economic production, the author uncovers and investigates various hidden layers of the organizational culture in the kibbutz, revealing that cultural change in the factories was intended as a way of coping with a changing competitive environment. Adding new typologies for familial business types, demonstrating how hybrid organizational structures have promoted economic success, and examining the lesser-studied communal perspective, it shows how social development can be used to provide a deeper analysis of the kibbutz industry as a microcosm of the changes in communal lifestyle that have recently shifted toward materialism and capitalism. As such, The Kibbutz Industry will appeal to scholars and students with interests in the sociology of organization, business studies, human resource management, and organizational behavior.

One Hundred Years of Kibbutz Life shows that the kibbutz thrives and describes changes that have occurred within Israel's kibbutz community. The kibbutz population has increased in terms of demography and capital, a point frequently overlooked in debates regarding viability. Like the kibbutz founders who established a society grounded in certain principles and meeting certain goals, kibbutz newcomers seek to build an idealistic society with specific social and economic arrangements.The years 1909-2009 marked a century of kibbutz life?one hundred years of achievements, challenges, and creative changes. The impact of kibbutzim on Israeli society has been substantial but is now waning. While kibbutzim have become less relevant in Israeli policy and politics, they are increasingly engaged in questions of environmentalism, education, and profitable industries.Contributors discuss the hopes, goals, frustrations, and disappointments of the kibbutz movement. They also examine reform efforts intended to revitalize the institution and reinforce fading kibbutz ideals. Such solutions are not always popular among kibbutz members, but they demonstrate that the kibbutz is an adaptive and flexible social organization. The various studies presented in this book clarify the dynamism of the kibbutz institution and raises questions about the ways in which residential arrangements throughout the world manage change.

The contributions to the "Thirty Years Volume" represented in this volume reflect the historical focus of the ProtoSociology project. Colleagues are represented who contributed to the focus. This is also true thematically, as contributions on language theory, the philosophy of the mental, and the sociology of contemporary societies are represented. The contributions to the "Thirty Years Volume" are definitely evidence that they address central research problems of ProtoSociology, regardless of their particular epistemological interests.

Rural development in Israel consists of a unique variety of industrialization experiences that may be instructive for many countries at various stages of development. The social, ideological, political, economic, and organizational precepts that Israel's rural settlements are based on lend themselves to many different approaches. This book deals with industrialization patterns in the kibbutz, the moshav, the non-agricultural village, and the Arab village. Prevailing conditions (size and labor force, availability of skills, infrastructure) and objectives (creation of employment, improvement of living standards) vary depending on the specific type of settlement As a result, optimal policy for rural industrialization is different from village to village. The authors give the general background of and define the specific development objectives for each type of village. They review relevant conditions at the local and regional levels; analyze the individual experiences of industrial development; evaluate economic achievement and attainment of development goals; and determine influential factors. The final aim is to reassess Israeli policies and strategies and offer lessons to other countries undertaking rural industrialization.