Children slept in communal houses while their parents worked land that nobody owned.
The first kibbutz, Degania, was founded in 1910 on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee by a group of young Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.1 The founders rejected private property, hired labor, and wage differentiation. Members worked the land collectively, ate in communal dining halls, and made decisions through general assemblies where each member held one vote.
At the height of the kibbutz movement in the 1980s, roughly 270 kibbutzim operated across Israel, housing around 125,000 members.2 Children in many kibbutzim slept in communal children's houses rather than with their parents, a practice designed to free women from domestic obligations and allow both parents to participate equally in communal work.
Kibbutzim produced a disproportionate share of Israel's military officers, political leaders, and agricultural output relative to their population. They accounted for roughly 40 percent of the country's agricultural production while representing less than 3 percent of the population.3
Beginning in the 1980s, an economic crisis and generational shifts led most kibbutzim to privatize. Members began receiving differential wages, communal dining halls closed, and children returned to sleeping in their parents' homes. By the early 2000s, the majority of kibbutzim had adopted some form of differential compensation.2
As of 2020, approximately 270 kibbutzim remained, but fewer than 70 still operated on the traditional collective model.3 The kibbutz movement remains one of the longest-running experiments in communal ownership and collective decision-making in modern history.