Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in Today's Israel? [Hardcover]

Jo-Ann Mort (Author), Gary Brenner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2003

"We thought we were living in a society of the future, showing how people can live together in a way that the human being is not a product of society where you have to put somebody down so that you are up. . . . Suddenly we [find] that people want to be more like outside, and we are disappointed."

"When people say to me, ‘We’re so sorry to see what’s going on in the kibbutzim because we are losing the most important thing that happened to the State of Israel,’ I say to them, ‘Listen . . . .’ The government lost interest in the kibbutz movement, and we had to find another way. The State of Israel slowly but surely became a normal state, and the pioneers finished their job. We are living in a new era. We have to make the adjustment."—from Our Hearts Invented a Place

One of the grand social experiments of modern time, the Israeli kibbutz is today in a state of flux. Created initially to advance Zionism, support national security, and forge a new socialist, communal model, the kibbutzim no longer serve a clear purpose and are struggling financially. In Our Hearts Invented a Place, Jo-Ann Mort and Gary Brenner describe how life on the kibbutz is changing as members seek to adapt to contemporary realities and prepare themselves for the future. Throughout, the authors allow the members’ often-impassioned voices—some disillusioned, some optimistic, some pragmatic—to be heard.

"The founders [of the kibbutz] had a dream," an Israeli told the authors in one of many interviews they conducted between 2000 and 2002, "[which] they fulfilled . . . a hundred times." The current generation, he explains, must alter that dream in order for it to survive. After tracing the formidable challenges facing the kibbutzim today, Mort and Brenner compare three distinct models of change as exemplified by three different communities. The first, Gesher Haziv, decided to pursue privatization. The second, Hatzor, is diversifying its economy while creating an extensive social safety net and a system of private wages with progressive taxation. In the third instance, Gan Shmuel is attempting to hold on to the traditional kibbutz model.

In closing, the authors address the new-style urban kibbutz. Their book will provide readers with a deeper understanding of the kibbutz—and of Israel itself—during an era of dramatic social, economic, and political change.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"For many decades, the Israeli kibbutz has figured significantly in the idealism of liberals and leftists. Now the transformation of the kibbutz challenges that idealism. Jo-Ann Mort and Gary Brenner offer the best possible guide to what is happening across the kibbutz movement. They are tough-minded and realistic in their analysis, but committed at the same time to sustaining whatever can be sustained of our old ideals."—Michael Walzer, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ

"Our Hearts Invented a Place is a clear and direct analysis of the changing face of the kibbutz, an elucidation of Martin Buber's expression of the kibbutz as ‘a successful failure.’"—Amos Elon, author of The Pity of it All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch and other books

"Much was written about the role of the kibbutz in paving the way for the emergence of modern Israel. Yet in today’s Israel, distant from the revolutionary spirit of its Zionist-socialist founders, the kibbutz is passing through a crisis: its mere survival is at stake and almost nothing has been published about this crucial stage of its development. By presenting intelligent voices from within the kibbutz, thinking aloud on the main dilemma—what should be transformed and what should remain as it was—and by their analysis and commentary, the authors of this book are filling that gap in a thoughtful and admirable manner."—Menachem Brinker, Professor Emeritus, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Crown Professor of Modern Hebrew Studies, University of Chicago

"Our Hearts Invented a Place is indispensable reading for anyone interested in the Israeli kibbutz movement and the crisis it is currently undergoing."—Melford E. Spiro, author of Kibbutz: Venture in Utopia, Children of the Kibbutz, and Gender and Culture: Kibbutz Women Revisited

About the Author

Jo-Ann Mort's articles about Israel and Jewish issues have appeared in a range of publications including the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the LA Weekly, the Forward, the Jerusalem Report, and Dissent Magazine, where she is a member of the editorial board. She is the editor of Not Your Father’s Union Movement: Inside the AFL-CIO. She lives and works in New York City. Gary Brenner, a member of Kibbutz Hatzor, is chairperson of the board of directors of the Givat Haviva Institute and marketing director of Solbar Hatzor Ltd.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 209 pages
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr (September 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801439302
• ISBN-13: 978-0801439308
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,501,849 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2.0 out of 5 stars biased study, July 2, 2008

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Edward (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in Today's Israel? (Hardcover)

This is a well-researched study and the authors have a good appreciation of the monumental shifts that have lately taken place in kibbutz society. The problem is that too frequently it reads like an apologia or rationalization of the frenzied and hasty ways that many (not all) kibbutzim abandoned the core principle of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." As one who lived many years in kibbutz, I grew skeptical of the authors' overly dismissive approach to those who feel that when a kibbutz institutes differential salaries (fortunately not all!) it is effectively no longer a kibbutz, whatever it chooses to call itself.