Page 17 - Issue 30

HABONIM DROR AND

INTENTIONAL COMMUNITY

In Habonim Dror, the ideal of Labor Zionist hagshama in
intentional community has always been front and center.
For 80 years, the non-urban kibbutz movement was the
framework that embodied the realization of intentional
community within Labor Zionism. With that, as distinct
from some other youth movements, there was always the
recognition that intentional community would be a path
for a minority even if intentional community was the
optimal path.

Broadly defined, intentional communities are
communities formed on a voluntary basis by individuals
with shared values and ideals.
There are intentional communities which seek a
particular way of life for their members only. There are
intentional communities who, together with other like-
minded intentional communities, form movements in
order to impact on society as a whole. In the past,
within the Zionist project, the kibbutz movement typified
the latter and the Habonim Dror Labor Zionist youth
movement federation was their recognized autonomous
partner in the Diaspora.

This is not the forum for to detail the dramatic changes
in the kibbutz movement during the last three decades
which marked the fading of the intentional aspect of the
kibbutz community and the transformation of the kibbutz
movement into a federation of cooperative communities.
For those interested, the story is detailed in the series,
“Whither Kibbutz” on the website of Michael Livni here.