'KIBBUTZIM which they could not do abroad but despite the protest their Zionism nlwa·ys showed. In fact, a settlement bas always had a political motive» (3). Kibbutz Beginnlngs C ONTRARY to popularly held opinion, the initiation of the kibbutz did not emerge from an idealist theoretical blueprint but from the concrete needs of Zionist land settlement. The technique of group settlement offered advantages to individual settlement since it was less expensive, more efficient and promised greater stability. As Dr. Arthur Ruppin wrote: · . «The question a.s not whether group settlement wa.s preterable to individual settlement; it was rather one of either group settlemept or no settlement at all» (4). . .The utopian-communal spirit of the vattikim {veteran pioneers) wa.s an important additional factor in the realisation of Zionist colonisation. The collectivist spirit reflected vattikim reJection of the~r· petit bourgeois shtetl background, their idealisation of rural ma.nuai labour and, aga.in, their overwhelming desire to become an elite, but 'normalised' constituency. As Stanley Diamond, a cultural anthropologist who has lived in a kibbutz notes: « ... the kibbutz was not a rationally planned society whose furniture merely needs some detailed re-a.rrangement in order to reveal to us the la.y out of the future. It is, and the point cannot be emphasised strongly enough, a highly specialised society, satisfying the historically created needs, both objective and subjective, of a Jewish generation in transition from the Shtetl, or its equivalent, to Statehood» (5). Vattikim notions of collectivisation were moulded by the instituUonal forms dernanded by settlement in Palestine. Harsh geogra,. phic conditions, threats of malaria, and a military confrontation with the native population were among the problems which had to be faced. Communal child care, a central dining hall, collectivised consumption - a.II emerged as responses to the colonising situation. These institutions were the classic symbols of what only later became u kibbutz ideology. The history of Deganyah 'A', the first of today's 236 kibbutzim (population approximately 100,000), provides an insight into some of the guiding principles of Zionist land settlement and the critical function of kibbutzim in the Yishuv society. The initial experiences (3) Lea Ben Dor comment!ng on the Bebastia affair, the Jilly 1974 rellglous group settlement ln occupled held Samaria, JeruaalemPoet (Overseas Weekly), 6. 8. 74. ' (4) Arthur Rupp!n, The Agrlcultural Colonlzation of the Zlonlit Orcanization in Palestine (translated by R. J .. Ferwal), London, 1928. (5) Stanley Dlamond, Dissent, Spr!ng 1957. 127
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