It hardly surprises one that the Kibbutz has played a pervasive and provocative role in the formation of Israel’s literary culture. A remarkable number of Israel’s founding generation of writers were raised, or spent a significant number of years on a Kibbutz. The institution of the Kibbutz was always treated with the same skepticism and questioning as any of Israel’s other national institutions, but in recent decades, increasingly pessimistic portrayals of estrangement and alienation have begun to eclipse more sanguine representations. This discussion addresses literary examples drawn from various genres, including literary fiction, memoir, and even mystery novels. Each of the highly representative narratives that will be discussed offers the perspectives of skeptical outsiders, or those otherwise estranged from the life they observe, as well as those who manage(d) to thrive under Kibbutz challenges. The unifying rubric serves to place the fraught relation between the individual and the collective into a razor-sharp perspective.
This lecture is a part of Kibbutz Life: History and Personal Reflections.