The Social Status of the Israeli Farmer

Preface:

I found this article in my extensive computer archives.
Unfortunately, I do not have any information about the author of this article and I cannot say who wrote it. I would be grateful to everyone, and especially to the author, if we could indicate his name in the title of this article, which thoroughly and in detail describes the history of the creation of Israeli agriculture and its structure.
I hope that this article will be interesting and useful to everyone who reads it.
Once again, I express my gratitude in advance to the author for the excellent material and ask you to forgive me for publishing this article on our site without the permission of the author of the article.

F. Rubinstein.

P.S. The author of the article has been found! His name is Boris Dubson. He lives in Be'ersheva. In addition to this article, he has written a lot of interesting things about Israel.
We thank Boris for permission to post the article on our website!

In 2000, there were about a thousand rural settlements in Israel, in which 460 thousand people lived. However, only a small part of the rural population is related to agriculture. In the same 2000, 39 thousand Jews and about 9 thousand Israeli citizens of other faiths, mainly Arabs, as well as 24 thousand foreign workers, mainly Thais, were employed in this sector of the Israeli economy. At the same time, the social status of a significant part of the inhabitants of rural settlements that arose as agricultural ones is still conditioned by the historical specifics of the creation and development of these settlements. The latter differ, first of all, in the nature of land ownership: only in settlements of the "MOSHAVA" type the land belongs to private owners, in all other cases it is rented by cooperatives from the state, represented either by the Jewish National Fund or the Israel Land Authority. This circumstance, as will be shown below, is of great importance for identifying the social status of rural residents.
As for the inhabitants of rural settlements of the "MOSHAV" type, their predominant part, due to historical reasons, has become the most well-off group of the rural population. In translation, "MOSHAV" means colony. The first settlements of Jewish colonists arose on the coastal plain during the time of the Ottoman Empire in 1882-1917. The land for these colonies was acquired by Jewish philanthropists, mainly Baron E. Rothschild. Even before 1882, the first 22.5 thousand dunams of land were acquired, by 1914 the area of ​​land purchased by Jews increased to 418 thousand dunams. Almost 80% of this land belonged to private owners. Cheap Arab labor was used on these lands, but it took a long time for the Jewish colonists who became farmers to create profitable family farms. However, as the Jewish population of Palestine grew, many of the colonies were transformed into cities, including Petah Tikva, Rishon LeZion, Netanya, Herzliya, Rehovot and others. Enclaves of low-rise buildings with large garden plots are a reminder of the historical past. The owners of these plots, if they sell them, can receive several million shekels for the land that ended up in the center of city neighborhoods. In the 1980s, 16 thousand people lived in 46 settlements of this type, but only a small part of this group are descendants of the original settlers and retain ties to agriculture.
Although the name of the most common type of rural settlement in Israel, "MOSHAV", sounds almost the same as "MOSHAV", but there are significant differences between them "MOSHAV" is an agricultural cooperative. In most of them, the so-called "workers' cooperatives" cooperation is limited to sales and supply, as well as the ownership of joint ventures, if any. In 2000, 189 thousand people lived in 409 cooperatives of this type. In addition, another 16.5 thousand people accounted for the population of 43 so-called collective cooperatives, in which cooperation also covers production. The first "MOSHAV" appeared in Israel in 1921. It was organized by colonists who left the kibbutz, who were not satisfied with the excessive level of socialization of all life in the kibbutzim. We will return to the latter, and as for moshavim, at the time of the creation of Israel, there were only 58 settlements of this type. The largest number of new moshavim appeared in the first decade after the country's declaration of independence, and their inhabitants consist mainly of repatriates who arrived after 1948. The extensive period of development of moshavim, however, as well as other agricultural settlements in Israel, ended by the beginning of the 80s. Although the population in them increased, the number of family farms has noticeably decreased in recent decades. In 1988, out of 27 thousand moshav farms Only 11.6 thousand provided full employment for family members and an acceptable level of income. In 10 thousand farms, family members had additional income outside the family farm, about six thousand farms existed only on paper or belonged to pensioners and disabled people. In 2000, the total number of private landowners and moshavniks engaged in agriculture was 15 thousand, compared to 41 thousand in 1960. The bulk of the income of families in moshavim comes from their earnings outside agriculture. Working in nearby cities, moshavim residents prefer to live in their own houses, many of which are in no way inferior in size and amenities to villas in the suburbs of Tel Aviv. But city dwellers are also attracted by the opportunity to build or rent a house in those moshavim from which a large city can be reached in 15-30 minutes by car. Beginning in the 1980s. a kind of annexation of former agricultural lands is underway, which are used for low-rise construction of cottages with an adjacent plot of half a dunam (1,000 square meters). In the 1990s, changes in legislation made it possible to begin building entire neighborhoods of villas in moshavim located in the center of the country. Thanks to the construction of new housing in moshavim, the number of their inhabitants continues to grow: from 1983 to 2000, it increased from 141 to 189 thousand people. The committees that manage moshavim seek to limit the influence of new neighbors on solving common problems by not granting them the right to participate in elections to the moshav council. But this is a kind of rearguard battle - it is obvious that the previous way of life in moshavim, associated with the cooperative form of management, is doomed to disappear.

Israeli kibbutzim - agricultural communes - are undergoing an even more impressive transformation. Formally, in 2000, there were 268 kibbutzim in Israel, with a total population of 115,000. But these are far from the agricultural communes that have become a historical legend and about which hundreds of books have been written. In order to understand the scale of the changes that have taken place in the kibbutzim, it is necessary to at least briefly dwell on their history.
The first agricultural commune - the kibbutz - in Palestine arose several decades before the creation of the State of Israel - in 1909. It was founded by young Jews, immigrants from Russia, who called themselves "HALUTZIM" - pioneers. On the land of their ancestors, they were going to recreate the connection between a Jew and the land, lost during two thousand years of exile, and to live in organic harmony with national and religious traditions. At the same time, they dreamed of creating a "new Jew" - a rural farmer with socialist ideals, living in a just society based on complete equality and collective responsibility. These ideas found many followers, who created dozens of kibbutzim. Not all kibbutz members withstood the test of hunger, disease, lack of basic amenities, and the struggle, sometimes bloody, with the hostile Arab environment. Not everyone liked the egalitarian principles according to which life in the kibbutzim was organized. In fact, this was the first social experiment in history, during which the communist principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" was implemented for many decades. Kibbutzniks believed in communist ideals: the charter of the first kibbutz association organized in 1927 stated that the kibbutz was a prototype of the future communist society. The embodiment of these principles was reflected first of all in the community of all movable and immovable property (according to the memoirs of the first kibbutzniks, even underwear brought from Russia could change owners after being washed in the kibbutz laundry).
Kibbutz members periodically changed jobs, and kibbutzniks took turns doing difficult and dirty work, evening and night shifts, and working on weekends and Saturdays. All material needs were met from public funds - the kibbutzim had a clothing warehouse, laundry, and dining room. Each kibbutz member also received a certain amount in cash, and the size of the personal budget was approved annually at a general meeting. Kibbutzim pay for the treatment and education of kibbutz members, in particular, for young people to study at universities in the specialties needed by the kibbutz. The common dining room was not only used for eating. Previously, it was also the center of social life, where people celebrated Saturday and holidays together, and discussed all problems in the evenings. – from philosophical to family. Incidentally, family life was also socialized – children were with their parents for only a short period after birth, then they were raised in 24-hour nurseries and kindergartens. Parents visited their children in the evenings after work, spending a couple of hours with them. The interference of the collective in family life was shocking by modern standards: from the same memoirs of old kibbutzniks, a fact is known when the behavior of a married couple expecting their third child in the family, as antisocial and anti-ideological, since the kibbutz at that time did not have enough workers. At the beginning, kibbutzniks lived in tents, in which, due to their shortage, a married couple and another girl or guy were often accommodated. The latter were called "primus stoves" in kibbutzim. These heating devices stood on three legs, and such a third leg was the singles, settled in the tent with married couples. All this, of course, is a distant past, testifying to the extreme poverty of the kibbutzim at the first stage of their existence. At the same time, it was poverty that was the key to the relative stability of the egalitarian organization of the kibbutzim. By the time the state of Israel was created, there were about 170 kibbutzim, which played a huge role in the formation of the young state and in its subsequent history. Suffice it to say that a significant part of the country's political and military elite, until recently, was represented by immigrants from the kibbutzim. Kibbutzim, like moshavim, reached their peak in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1960, Israel's agriculture accounted for one fifth of the country's gross domestic product, and approximately the same number of workers were employed in this sector of the economy. The use of the most advanced technologies for cultivating land and raising livestock brought Israel's agriculture to a leading position in the world. But the growth in labor productivity had its downside: fewer and fewer workers were needed to meet domestic needs and exports. For example, several decades ago, Kibbutz Nahal Oz required 25 workers to cultivate 10,000 dunams of arable land; today, 6-7 people are enough to cultivate this area. In addition, the growth in labor productivity was less and less compensating for the increase in production costs. The cultivation of many crops did not justify the costs, and in foreign markets, Israeli products were finding it increasingly difficult to compete with products from developing countries with cheap labor. The days when oranges defined the face of Israeli agricultural exports are gone; now its largest item is the export of flowers and exotic fruits. Focusing solely on agricultural production no longer corresponds to the dictates of the times and the needs of the kibbutz members themselves.
It should be noted that by the beginning of the 1960s, the composition of the kibbutz population had also changed noticeably. The number of religious kibbutzim increased, and their members had a completely different value system compared to the immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe who came to Palestine in the first decades of the 20th century. Many newcomers appeared in the old kibbutzim – repatriates from America and Western Europe, as well as demobilized soldiers and officers who were rather cool towards the socialist ideals of the “pioneer” generation. As the world changed, so to speak, "beyond the kibbutz outskirts," it became increasingly difficult to maintain faith in the old ideals and to maintain the kibbutz way of life that was familiar to them. The general growth of prosperity significantly expanded the range of needs and spiritual aspirations of the kibbutzniks themselves. A car, vacation trips abroad, and many other new goods and services are difficult to fit into the egalitarian model of consumption. Although there were attempts to "standardize" these new needs in the kibbutzim: cars were purchased to provide them to kibbutz members as needed, joint trips abroad were organized, etc. Nevertheless, the growing diversity of individual needs proved incompatible with the social form of satisfying them.
Disillusionment with ideals and dissatisfaction with the kibbutz order was reflected in the decline in the number of kibbutz members, especially in the second half of the 1980s. According to surveys of former kibbutz members, the greatest dissatisfaction was caused by the interference of kibbutz members in their personal lives, the high degree of dependence on decisions made by other kibbutz members, the discrepancy between the entire life of the kibbutz and modern times, and the imbalance between personal contribution and material return. A significant portion of the "escapees" hoped to achieve greater success in an independent life. Such factors as the lack of professional prospects and the possibility of showing personal initiative in the kibbutz also played a significant role. The growth of dissatisfaction with the material situation cannot be ignored either. The financial difficulties experienced by many kibbutzim since the mid-1980s led to a reduction in personal budgets and a freeze on the size of public funds. This was mainly due to the fact that in the first half of the 1980s, many kibbutzim, having succumbed to the general excitement of creating their own industrial enterprises, took out bank loans without thinking about the possibility of repaying them. In the conditions of galloping inflation, the real interest rate on the loans taken out was relatively low. But in 1985, as a result of the implementation of the economic recovery program, the inflation rate was reduced to 20%, and the interest rate on loans increased from and in two years from 12 to 89%. As a result, the kibbutzim's debt on loans increased from 2 to 12 billion shekels in the period 1982 - 1989. And yet, as noted above, economic difficulties were not the only reason for the decline in the number of kibbutzniks. It was mainly young people who left the kibbutzim - more than 70% were people under 40 years of age. The exodus from the kibbutzim was so large-scale that in some of them there remained a purely symbolic number of members. In 1998, according to data from the national association, which included 170 kibbutzim, the smallest of them had only 13 members and candidates, and another 12 kibbutzim had fewer than 40 kibbutzniks. In fairness, it should be noted that in the same year the largest kibbutz had 924 members and candidates, and in another 14 kibbutzim the number of members exceeded 500 people. In 48 kibbutzim the number of members was from 100 to 200, and in another 40 kibbutzim from 200 to 300 members. Returning to the situation that developed in the kibbutzim in the 80s, it can be noted that they faced a Hamlet question - to be or not to be. It was necessary to take radical measures in order to survive in the new conditions. One of such measures was the practice of granting kibbutz members the right to work on the side. Young people who received specialized and higher education and who do not find application for their knowledge in their native kibbutz are released on a kind of "rent". She is allowed to work outside the kibbutz, provided that her earnings are transferred to the kibbutz bank account. Of the total earnings, part goes as a contribution to the kibbutz's public funds, and the "otkhodnik" uses part for her own needs, having received a bank credit card. For example, in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, where half of its members work on the side, 50% of their earnings are transferred to the kibbutz budget. At first, many kibbutzim set a maximum period of work outside the kibbutz - about three years. Now these restrictions have been practically lifted. The number of kibbutzniks on "otkhod" has grown noticeably in recent decades: in 1986, only 9% of kibbutzniks worked on the side, by 1997 already 18.5% - 14.4 thousand - belonged to this category. Sometimes kibbutz members working outside the kibbutz earn less than hired workers in the kibbutz itself. But more often, the earnings of migrant workers are higher than the personal budgets of kibbutz members. In the same kibbutz "Nahal Oz" the level of the highest nominal earnings is 5 times higher than the lowest, but after taxes this gap is reduced by 2 times.
The innovations were not limited to granting the right to work outside the kibbutz. Kibbutzim began to look for opportunities to generate income outside the sphere of agriculture. Small industrial production, mainly for processing agricultural products, appeared in kibbutzim long ago, but a real revolution in their production orientation began only in recent decades. Industrial workshops and entire enterprises were created in almost every kibbutz. In 2000, 454 enterprises in kibbutzim and moshavim employed 37,000 workers, 10% of the total number of people employed in the country's manufacturing industry. Not all of them are actually factories or plants. Sometimes they are small workshops or shops, which can be housed in a former clothing warehouse, and all the equipment can be transported on a small plane. The range of production in kibbutzim is unusually wide, both in the number of items and in the level of technology used. There are enterprises that produce unique alloys, the most modern electronics, semiconductors, etc. But along with high-tech products, furniture, building materials, consumer goods intended for specialized categories of consumers are also produced, such as toys, eyeglass cases, jewelry, etc. Currently, the kibbutz industry accounts for 7% of total sales, 9% of exports, 7% of investments, and 6.5% of those employed in the manufacturing industry. According to the Association of Kibbutz Enterprises, the average level of education and qualifications of workers in the enterprises that are part of this association is higher than in the entire Israeli industry. However, every second worker in kibbutz enterprises was already employed in the 1980s. The transformation of kibbutzim into agro-industrial complexes led to the final rejection of the principle of "self-reliance" - the use of labor only by kibbutz members. The number of hired workers in kibbutzim grew especially noticeably in the 1990s: from 1991 to 1997 it increased from 10.8 to 27 thousand.
Some of the kibbutz enterprises turned out to be so profitable that it became possible to attract additional capital by transforming them into joint-stock companies. Thus, in kibbutz "Carmelit" in 1993, on the basis of its plant "Carmel-plastic" established a joint-stock company and successfully sold 20% of its shares on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. The creation of modern enterprises required significant investments and the pooling of resources from the kibbutzim, many of whom were included into joint concerns. The agro-industrial complex "Granot" belongs to 41 kibbutzim. In the 90s, this complex invested heavily in the development of technological greenhouses developing new technologies. In early 2001, "Granot" created a financial holding company together with private investors to finance promising technological developments.
The diversification of production in the kibbutzim was not limited to the creation of industrial production. Kibbutzim located in picturesque places began to develop the tourism industry, offering city dwellers a rural holiday with full board and the opportunity to use developed infrastructure, including swimming pools, parks, horseback riding, etc. Hotels are used in houses that were previously intended for numerous guests from abroad who came to get acquainted with the life of the kibbutzim. Commercialization also covers other areas of kibbutz life. In many kibbutzim, public dining rooms have been converted into banquet halls that are rented out for weddings and anniversaries; houses abandoned by former kibbutz members are rented out to visitors.
The increasing complexity of the kibbutz economic structure has had a number of negative consequences for their social organization. The number and influence of managers, on whom the efficiency of the economy primarily depends, has increased significantly. The rotation of managers of industrial and other enterprises seems absurd. A serious problem is managing the kibbutz economy in the context of significant fluctuations in the profitability of individual industries. Most kibbutzim have switched to a system of business accounting for individual industries. With the emergence of joint businesses involving several kibbutzim or even involving private capital, the question of the economic independence of former kibbutz enterprises has arisen. According to the law, joint-stock companies are organized with a board of directors, in which all shareholders are represented. This board is responsible for the financial activities of the company. In Kibbutz Carmelit, after the plant was transformed into a joint-stock company, they soon became convinced that the board of directors had its own opinion on the use of profits, which diverged from the opinion of the kibbutz management.
The change in the nature and structure of production activities in the kibbutzim occurred simultaneously with the evolution of the professional composition of their inhabitants. In 1997, almost a quarter of the adult population were specialists with higher and secondary education, 6.5% were managers, 29% were office workers and workers in the service and trade sectors, 9% were industrial workers and only 12% were skilled agricultural workers. In 2000, only 9.5 thousand kibbutz members were directly employed in agriculture.
All of the above changes, starting with the growth of seasonal work and the number of hired workers and ending with the transformation of the professional structure of kibbutzniks, led to the inevitable erosion of the basic principles of the social organization of the kibbutzim. Since in many kibbutzim almost every fourth inhabitant leaves for work early in the morning and returns late in the evening, shared lunches and dinners in the dining room have lost their ritual character. In every second kibbutz, "migrant workers" are given money for food, and many generally prefer to eat entirely at home. In a number of kibbutzim, the dining rooms had to be closed or repurposed, as was already mentioned above. Round-the-clock nurseries and kindergartens have been practically closed - children spend the night at home. In the late 90s, only one kibbutz, "Baram", which its inhabitants themselves called a historical reserve, retained round-the-clock children's institutions.
The above changes went quite smoothly, which cannot be said about the transition in kibbutzim to differentiated wages. This transition is painful and long. At first, many kibbutzim agreed to change the ratio between contributions to public funds and personal budgets in favor of the latter. By 1991, this reform had taken place in about half of the kibbutzim. As personal budgets increased, the scale of meeting the needs of kibbutzniks at the expense of public funds was reduced - food costs and electricity consumption began to be covered from personal income. Then, some kibbutzim began to pay for additional night, Saturday and holiday shifts at work. After that, they moved on to calculating the so-called "shadow" wages, corresponding to the wages for similar jobs outside the kibbutzim. And only after that came the stage of transition to the current system of differentiated wages. In order to avoid disputes and contradictions, wage rates are determined by independent experts. By the end of the 1990s, the transition to differentiated wages had taken place in approximately 50 kibbutzim, which, in essence, had finally parted with the fundamental principle of their social organization – equality in consumption. Of course, certain differences in material status had existed in the kibbutzim before : some were helped by foreign relatives, others were financially supported by parents or children who managed to achieve material prosperity outside the kibbutzim. But deep stratification in the kibbutzim began relatively recently, with the formation of a stable administrative and managerial elite and differentiated wages. The kibbutzim now have their own "rich" and "poor", but this gradation is true only within the kibbutzim themselves. In general, the level of social security for kibbutz members is immeasurably higher than that of the entire population of the country. Even in those kibbutzim that have switched to differentiated wages, a high initial level of earnings has been established. For example, in Kibbutz Gesher Hatziv, a school graduate is guaranteed a minimum of 3,000 shekels, and a married couple, respectively, 5,100 shekels. In this same kibbutz, where half of the 200 members are over 50, the pension is 7,200 shekels net per married couple. This is a fairly high pension by Israeli standards. It is noteworthy that elements of the previous social organization are preserved longer in those kibbutzim that have the highest incomes. Wealthy kibbutzim can afford to maintain public consumption on a significant scale. However, this does not exclude discord between the older generation of kibbutz members and the youth over the distribution of income and profits. For example, in Kibbutz Gadot, which receives 75% of its income from a plastics factory, the older generation advocated for an increase in pensions, while the youth demanded an increase in personal budgets.
What does the future hold for kibbutzim? Perhaps they will all follow the example of the members of Kibbutz Mishmar David, who decided to disband their kibbutz? (See below) Much will depend on how the "land issue" in Israel is resolved. Until the early 1990s, kibbutzim and moshavim received compensation for agricultural land taken from them for housing and industrial construction at standard rates: $1,500 for one dunam of unirrigated land, $3,000 for irrigated land, and $5,000 for a dunam used for fruit plantings. However, since the early 1990s, the price of land has been rising rapidly due to the construction boom. From 1991 to 1998, About 400,000 dunams of land were withdrawn from agricultural use, a quarter of which was in the central region, 80,000 dunams in the north and almost 60,000 dunams in the south of the country. Investments in construction brought huge profits. Naturally, kibbutzim and moshavim also wanted their share of this fat pie. Some of them managed to take advantage of the favorable situation and built shopping centers on their lands, serving residents of surrounding towns, especially on Saturdays, when most commercial establishments in the cities are closed. But hundreds of thousands of dunams of agricultural land are still at stake. The potential for residential construction alone in 30 cities in Israel in 1996 was estimated at 350,000 housing units. A significant part of this construction will occupy former agricultural land. In total, the area suitable for agriculture in Israel is 4.2 million dunams, of which only half is irrigated land. In the most fertile central part of the country, the area of ​​agricultural land is about one million dunams. According to estimates by the Department of Rural Planning and Development of the Ministry of Agriculture, in the next 20 years approximately 200 thousand dunams of agricultural land in the center of the country will be used for the construction of housing, roads, industrial and commercial zones. How will the profits from the increase in land rent be divided? In the early 1990s, the farming lobby, headed by the current Prime Minister A. Sharon, managed to change the law on compensation for land withdrawn from agricultural use. According to the new rules, kibbutzim and moshavim received 50% of the market price of the land intended for commercial use and the right of entrepreneurial initiative on this land. However, this order did not last long - A. Shochat, the Minister of Finance in the government of I. Rabin, was forced to reduce the share of farmers to 27% on the land in the center of the country and returned the right of entrepreneurial initiative on the withdrawn land to the Israel Land Authority. However, the struggle continues, and committees are created again and again to consider this issue, which propose reducing the amount of compensation for kibbutzim and moshavim to 15-20% and even to 10% of the market value of the land. For now, the old order is in effect - compensation is 27% of the market value of land in the center of the country. The example of the moshav "Achismach", located near the city of Lod, shows what amounts we are talking about. After five years of considering the issue of building three thousand housing units on the lands of this moshav, in the spring of 2000 it received permission for commercial use of 27% of the total area of ​​land intended for development. According to the agreement concluded between the moshav and the Shuval company, 800 houses and cottages will be built on this area, the market value of which will be 120 million dollars. What share of this amount the moshav will receive is unknown, but it is obvious that it will be more than the market value of the land itself.
But even in the worst-case scenario for the kibbutzim and moshavim of changes in land legislation, the economic situation of about a hundred kibbutzim does not cause any concerns. These rich kibbutzim help to partially pay off the debts of other, less fortunate neighbors. But even in the poorest kibbutzim, the planned privatization of the housing stock (the total value of which is about two billion dollars) will turn kibbutzniks into owners of expensive real estate. There is no doubt that the kibbutz members will remain collective owners of the accumulated production assets and partners in joint businesses. But in this capacity, kibbutz members have nothing in common with the "new Jew" dreamed of by the initiators of a social experiment unique in its duration and scale.

Farewell to the Kibbutz

"Mishmar David" is a small kibbutz located near the city of Rehovot. It became one of the first kibbutzim to be transformed into ordinary rural settlements. The debt to banks and the Jewish Agency of twenty families, including fifty kibbutz members, amounts to 70 million shekels. We are all "minus millionaires," kibbutz members joke. The only way out for the kibbutz is to liquidate the chicken coops and build 350 new cottages and villas on the land they occupy, which will be put up for free sale. At a short meeting, 50 kibbutz members voted to transform the kibbutz into an ordinary settlement, and only one was against. How can such unanimity be explained? The reasons for the collapse of kibbutz values ​​are quite typical. In the 1980s, the kibbutz took out loans to build its own factory and got into debt. Many kibbutzniks left for the cities, others found work outside the kibbutz.
The range of services provided to kibbutz members from public funds was gradually reduced. Each kibbutz member receives a salary and pays personal income tax. Everyone buys food, clothing, textbooks and medicines on their own. Maintaining the kibbutz canteen became a waste, a significant portion of the food went to feed the kibbutz dogs. In 1993, the kibbutz stopped providing its members with clothing, and instead began to issue money. This immediately allowed the budget to save 50 thousand shekels a year. In 1994, the dining hall was closed. For about a year, Shabbat and holidays were celebrated there, but the kibbutz members were fed up with kitchen duties and the dining hall was closed for good. Only memories of the joint celebration of Passover remained, which attracted up to 200 kibbutz members, their relatives and guests. The last tradition - celebrating Independence Day with folk dancing and a disco - also died out after kibbutz members began to receive money to satisfy their individual cultural needs. The only public facility in the kibbutz is a laundry, the services of which are free.
The bonds between kibbutz members have been broken, and they are increasingly consumed by envy of each other. None of the young people want to live on the kibbutz. Under these circumstances, the proposal of the state trustee over the kibbutz debts to transform the kibbutz into an ordinary settlement was met with relief. Every second person in the kibbutz is a over 50 years old. They hope that selling the houses they built instead of the poultry houses will not only pay off their debts, but also provide them with good pensions. In addition, all members of the kibbutz continue to be the owners of the kibbutz factory that produces labels.
The reforms in Mishmar David are being closely watched by other kibbutzim, which are unsuccessfully trying to preserve their old traditions. According to the former secretary of Kibbutz Mishmar David, who is well acquainted with the situation in his neighbors, in the next ten years about a third of all kibbutzim will follow the example of his native kibbutz.

Afterword. (from F. Rubinstein)

Agricultural products make up about 10% of Israel's GDP and about the same share of exports. A significant part of this product is produced by farmers, that is, moshavniks, who are formally members of moshavim, i.e. peculiar cooperatives, but the Councils of moshavim are perhaps more concerned with issues of improvement, social issues, education, than with agricultural production itself, although they strive with all their might to maintain control over agricultural lands and jealously protect their settlements from the expansion of the number of full-fledged moshavniks.
The article devotes much attention to kibbutzim and the author with slight sadness notes the withering of the ideas laid down in the foundation of the kibbutz movement by its creators. Nevertheless, sadly, collective agriculture cannot compete with healthy private initiative, and the kibbutz movement withstood this competition, despite the serious preferences and subsidies that the state provided them.
The last such step was the decision to create a kibbutz industry. This was a wise decision that allowed many kibbutzim to find a way out of their difficult financial situation, but even such a step by the state could not keep all the kibbutzim afloat. And the main reason for this, in my opinion, was the very ineffective and sluggish management system of the created enterprises, when public structures of the kibbutzim were involved in decision-making, right up to general meetings, where sometimes very elderly, respected members of the kibbutz, born and raised on socialist collectivist ideas, slowed down the dynamics of the development of these enterprises, which ultimately led many kibbutzim and the system as a whole to a slow decline.
It should be noted that several kibbutz enterprises were able to lay the foundations of an industry for the production of modern agricultural equipment, and today this kibbutz industry fully meets domestic needs, and sells a significant part of the manufactured products for export.