Youval Vakrat in his store in the Israeli kibbutz of Hanita on April 13, 2023 (AFP/MENAHEM KAHANA)
“You can still see a bit of oil on the walls,” says Youval Vakrat in the former metallurgical factory that now houses an art gallery, several shops and a distillery in Kibbutz Hanita, in the northwest of ‘Israel.
Like the man who returned to live in the kibbutz where he was born 43 years ago, others have returned home, attracted by the new opportunities available to them in these former collectivist agricultural villages.
Located in the Upper Galilee, near the border with Lebanon, Hanita, founded in 1938, now has around 750 inhabitants.
Created by European Zionist Jews who came to settle in Ottoman Palestine, then under British mandate, the kibbutz have long represented the dynamism of the young Israeli state proclaimed in 1948.
An employee of the Agroscout company flies a drone in Kibbutz Yiron, Israel, on April 13, 2023 (AFP/Menahem KAHANA)
“Everything was common”, explains sociologist Youval Achouch, a specialist in the kibbutz, a word which means “assembly” or “together” in Hebrew. “There was no private property.”
“The kibbutz was the most successful socialist society in the history of mankind”, before it declined in the 1980s, assures the teacher-researcher at Western Galilee Academic College in Acre (north) .
Economic difficulties and the fall of the USSR in the 1990s contributed to questioning the cooperative and egalitarian model of the kibbutzim, which were heavily indebted, he said, leading to a demographic crisis.
Many young people left these villages for the city before the appearance of new individualistic values caused the kibbutz to take a liberal turn at the beginning of the 20th century, continues Mr. Achouch.
– From cows to technology –
Children play in a park in Kibbutz Hanita, Israel, on April 13, 2023 (AFP/MENAHEM KAHANA)
The majority of the approximately 270 kibbutz in the country then began a process of “privatization”. “They set aside ideological principles, socialism, and tried to fit into the surrounding economic system to survive,” says the sociologist.
Like Hanita, which opened up to entrepreneurs, the kibbutzim today encourage private initiatives to attract young people and the population has been growing again for ten years, underlines Mr. Achouch.
Having gone around the world before returning a few years ago, Mr. Vakrat now runs a shop selling games and wooden objects that he manufactures in the old metallurgical factory.
“Projects began to emerge for young people and this met our needs,” he says.
“I also had the opportunity to buy an old house at a good price and I took this opportunity”, he says, praising the living environment and the proximity to nature, Hanita being nestled at the top of a hill, “surrounded by a forest and near the sea”.
Aerial view of Kibbutz Yiron in northern Israel, established in 1949 on the ruins of a Palestinian village destroyed by Jewish forces during the 1948-1949 Arab-Israeli war, on April 13, 2023 (AFP/MENAHEM KAHANA)
According to Gil Lin, CEO of the Kibbutz Industry Association, an organization that brings together and represents the kibbutz, they represent 40% of the country’s agricultural production and 11% of its industry. And they are now diversifying by investing more and more in real estate and services.
They are also reinventing themselves through investments in the high-tech sector, the engine of Israel’s economy, which prides itself on being a “start-up nation”.
In Kibbutz Yiron, in the northeast of Israel, an agro-technological company, Agroscout, settled a year and a half ago in the old barn, renovated especially for them.
“There were still cows here 30 years ago,” Simha Shore, founder and managing director of this company, which offers technological solutions to farmers, told AFP.
– “Innovative approaches” –
Simha Shore, founder and managing director of agri-tech company Agroscout, poses with a photo of the barn at Kibbutz Yiron which now serves as the company’s office, on April 13, 2023 (AFP/Menahem KAHANA)
The large black and white photo of the barn displayed in the entrance provides a stark contrast to the current setting.
Glass partitions have taken place in the old stable room and on the set, employees are immersed in their computer screens while others handle drones that they are about to fly above a nearby field.
The technology developed by Agroscout makes it possible to collect information on crops and detect the presence of pests using drones, satellites or mobile phones.
Aided by the Kibbutz Industry Association, kibbutzim are learning about technologies and investing in start-ups with which they share the same “innovative approaches”, Lin notes.
“The kibbutzim were the first start-ups” in Israel, he says.
“Israeli culture is daring and it is creative. At the time, the kibbutz embodied this state of mind, today it is the start-ups”, adds Mr. Achouch.
© 2023 AFP
Did you like this article ? Share it with your friends with the buttons below.
