Kibbutzniks in the Diaspora

Part Four: Life Cycles

Part Four Life Cycles T he life stories of my interviewees showed how their belonging to a family, an age group, a society, and a state, in a cyclical hierarchy , influenced their lives in the past and in the present: the close community (the person and hislher family); the school community (the children's society in the kibbutz and all those active in the school); the local community (the territory of the kibbutz); and the distant community (the state and the Jewish heritage). These life cycles are often interrelated (R. Shapira 1989). 115 The Parental Home and the Kibbutz T he kibbutzniks' life stories accentuate the central role of relationships within the family and between the falnily and the kibbutz society; as well as the significant implications these relationships have on the future course of these young people's lives. The Relationship with Their Parents Most of the interviewees referred to their parents, at the start of the interview, sentimentally and nostalgically, defining the present contact with them as close, warm, and supportive. They regarded the frequency of this contact through telephone calls and letters as a measure of its quality. The kibbutz, on the other hand, was portrayed in a less rosy light. l'his illustrates the distinction between the bond to the parental home and the bond to the kibbutz home, although ostensibly the kibbutz is the home. Many of the interviewees identified their ties to Israel with their ties to family and parents. Only a few said that for them the kibbutz was an important link in their ties to Israel. SOUle of these related positively to the efforts the kibbutz made to maintain contacts with them through letters, news bulletins, and information sheets. All the interviewees, including those who harbored SOllle criticism towards their parents and the kibbutz, described their childhood, particularly their early childhood, with warmth and longing. The landscape and serene life is engraved in their memory. Many of them added that they would be happy if their children had the opportunity to enjoy such cllildhood experiences. 116 LIFE CYCLES 117 However, as we delved more deeply into their relationships with their parents, a different picture emerged. "My family contributed to my lack of confidence. They were pressured 'to be like everyone else' and they put pressure on their children so 'they'd be like all the others '," Anat said. The interviewees believed that the patterns of their relationship with the parental home had an impact on their decision to emigrate or to remain in Israel. A shaky relationship strengthened their desire to put some distance between themselves and their parents. Mittelberg and Lev-Ari (1991a) noted that those factors that compel people to leave their country of origin (push factors) have a greater effect on the potential immigrant than the attractions of the country of immigration (pull factors). 1 About half of the kibbutzniks who participated in the study described their relationship with their parents as complex, filled with tension and frustration. Others stated with satisfaction that the relationship with their parents was and still is close and warm, and some of them, in particular children of Holocaust survivors, spoke about a "suffocating warmth." A hidden inner conflict was evident in the things the interviewees said. On one hand, they wanted to maintain close contacts with parents and siblings who had remained in Israel. On the other, they had a strong need to break away, sometimes even to run away, particularly when they felt their families were stifling them or that family relations were strained. Most of the interviewees spoke about the weakness of the parentchild relationship on the kibbutz, a relationship they would not want to return to under any circumstances. The main point of criticism was the parents' limited involvement in the children's lives and in the educational settings in which they were reared, beginning with the toddlers ' group through the children_'s house and the elementary or high school. Anat asserted, "My parents are from a generation that thought the teachers knew everything, and they remained on the sidelines." Dina said, "In decisions about my studies in the vocational school, my parents were not consulted. They were made directly by the kibbutz education committee and the school." Since it was the metapelet and not the parents who bore the main responsibility as their children's disciplinarians, there was nothing to keep the parents from being permissive and...