After having a chance to learn and visit the oldest kibbutz in Israel, we also got to visit one of the newest kibbutzim – Kibbutz Mishol, which is an urban kibbutz in Nazareth Illit (recently renamed Nof HaGalil). Rather than chicken coops, fields and factories (and perhaps guest houses), this kibbutz consists of a rented apartment building, a basketball court and small community garden, in the middle of a socio-economically challenged mixed neighborhood in a city. Living together in this apartment are 72 adults and 80 kids committed to collective and intentional living with the aiming of improving the social welfare of the neighborhood and city. They picked their location in cooperation with the city and the local education board who invited them due to their dedication to working to improve the education possibilities and youth programming in town, in a neighborhood suffering from poverty, violence, and substance abuse. All of the members of the kibbutz are involved in the educational efforts of the town, sharing a vision of working to improve the communal good. The members of the kibbutz now run a preschool and day care, the elementary school, a youth movement, an after school club and a teen center in what is a poverty stricken and crime ridden neighborhood. The neighborhood is approximately 60% Russian and 30% Arab/Palestinian and there is frequent tension and violence between the different groups who attend the same schools and live in the same neighborhood. Adding to the challenge, many of the Palestinians in this neighborhood moved out of Nazareth because of different things that made it harder for them to thrive in Nazareth, such as many single parent families that had been marginalized in Nazareth, and with very limited resources.

Each floor of this apartment building constitutes a group (kevutza) of the kibbutz and makes decisions on how they want to live communally, such as how many meals they eat together, how they celebrate shabbat and how they do groceries and share resources. All of the kibbutz members’ salaries go into a central kibbutz bank account that then pays for communal expenses and divides the remainder between the different kevutzot (groups). The kibbutz as a whole has cars that members can sign out, and a music studio room and dance studio (which doubles as a space for birthing classes a doula at the kibbutz offers to the region). The kibbutz has only one area big enough for everyone to meet – the basketball court, which they decorate for kibbutz activities such as the seder and bnai mitzvah. And interesting to me, the kibbutz studies Jewish texts and subjects on Fridays in their own beit midrash and has written their own siddur and brachot, defining themselves as atheist Jews. Interestingly when it comes to making kibbutz decisions, rather than voting, they have a consensus building process where they keep discussing and giving feedback until they arrive at consensus.

Our host at the kibbutz believes that one of the tipping points when classic kibbutzim started to fail was when they stopped being focused on working on the national common good and focused on their own kibbutz’ success and wealth. There is now a network of these urban kibbutzim and intentional communities both inside Israel and outside Israel. \

Really truly inspiring to hear members of this kibbutz dedicated to working to improve the socio-educational realities of one of the poor, vulnerable neighborhoods in Israel, dreaming of what can happen and making it happen. While there are now huge improvements in the elementary school and preschools, one of their next challenges is trying to figure out how they can help at the middle school and high school level where the local schools are violence ridden.