What is a kibbutz - the Jewish communities targeted by Hamas in the weekend attacks?

The Kibbutz movement focused on communal living

When Hamas militants stormed Israel on Saturday, a number of Kibbutz communities, especially those close to Gaza, were targeted and residents killed or taken hostage.

Videos from broadcast journalists allowed into some of these communities in recent days have revealed horrific scenes of bloodshed.

What is a Kibbutz and why are they unique to Israel?

An Israeli woman holds a pack of stems in a field of Ranunculus flowers in the southern Israeli Kibbutz of Nir Yitzhak, located along the Israeli-Gaza Strip border, during the Jewish holiday of Passover in 2017.

What is a Kibbutz?

Meaning “group” or “gathering”, the first kibbutz was Deganya Aleph, south of the Sea of Galilee, founded in 1910 by a group of Jews as a farm community. Now, there are over 270 in Israel.

Most remain focused on agriculture, or industries such as wine making and tourism. However, some have diversified into other businesses. Kibbutz Degania’s diamond cutting factory turns over several million dollars a year, while Kibbutz Hatzerim’s company, Netafim, was a global pioneer in drip irrigation equipment.

How do people live in a Kibbutz?

Israeli soldiers remove the body of a civilian, who was killed days earlier in an attack by Palestinian militants on this kibbutz near the border with Gaza on Tuesday, in Kfar Aza, Israel.

Traditionally, the residents of the communes shared everything and worked as members of a collective. Dining halls existed, as well as a “children’s house”, where children of the Kibbutz pent most of their time. In some communities, the children lived there, away from their parents, in a kind of boarding school environment.

Modern Kibbutz communities have changed, with only a small proportion living under the very traditional model.

In the traditional collective kibbutz, members are compensated equally, regardless of what work each member does; while the mixed model kibbutz gives each member is given a small percentage of his or her salary along with a basic component given equally to all kibbutz members. A third model, the renewing kibbutz is where a member's income consists solely of their individual income from his or her work – and sometimes includes income from other kibbutz sources.

How many people live in a Kibbutz in Israel?

Around 125,000 people now live in Kibbutz in Israel. The movement peaked in the 1960s and 1970s as an idealistic way of life, however decreased in the 1980s when people began to be disillusioned with communal living and some left. In modern times, since reform of the communal way of living, they have regained popularity.

Following his retirement, David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, moved to Kibbutz Sde Boker.