LITR 5737: Literary & Historical Utopias
Historical Presentation 2005

 Bryon Smith 

Jews as Utopians

Shavuot - the Jewish holiday celebrating the anniversary of the receipt of the Torah at Mt. Sinai. 

On the night of Shavuot Jews keep vigil and study the Torah

Because the holiday centers around Torah, observant Jews stay up all night in marathon study sessions known as tikkun leil Shavout (literally "Shavuot night repair," alluding to the Jewish goal of "tikkun olam," or repair of the world).

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/168/story_16809_1.html

Tikkun Olam – World Repair

Isaac Luria, the renowned sixteenth century Kabbalist, used the phrase “tikkun olam,” usually translated as repairing the world, to encapsulate the true role of humanity in the ongoing evolution and spiritualization of the cosmos. Luria taught that God created the world by forming vessels of light to hold the Divine Light. But as God poured the Light into the vessels, they catastrophically shattered, tumbling down toward the realm of matter. Thus, our world consists of countless shards of the original vessels entrapping sparks of the Divine Light. Humanity’s great task involves helping God by freeing and reuniting the scattered Light, raising the sparks back to Divinity and restoring the broken world.  http://www.innerfrontier.org/Practices/TikkunOlam.htm

Longing for the Messiah

Since every King is a Messiah, by convention, we refer to this future anointed king as The Messiah. The above is the only description in the Bible of a Davidic descendant who is to come in the future. We will recognize the Messiah by seeing who the King of Israel is at the time of complete universal perfection.

What is the Messiah supposed to accomplish? The Bible says that he will:

A. Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).

B. Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).

C. Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4)

D. Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one. As it says: "God will be King over all the world -- on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).
http://search.aish.com/jewishissues/jewishsociety/Why_Jews_Dont_Believe_In_Jesus.asp?s=g&k=jesus>

Kibbutzim

History

The Aliyas:

Aliya- Word used to describe the waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine

First Aliya 1882-1903, Mostly Jews from southern Russia, eastern Europe, Yemen.

Second Aliya 1904-1914, Mainly from Russia

Third Aliya 1919-1923, Mainly from Eastern Europe

Fourth Aliya 1924-1929, Poland and the USA

Fifth Aliya 1929-1939, Eastern Europe and Germany

Aliya Bet 1933-1948 110,000 Jews immigrate to Palestine, most illegally

Russian Aliya, following collapse of the USSR

1880’s Zionism emerges, partly as a response to anti-Semitism in Russia

1909 Degania founded by the southern shores of Sea of Galilee, 12 people,

1914 Degania has 50 members, other kibbutzim founded around Sea of Galilee and N. Palestine

1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia; borders closed to emigration;

1918 Ottoman control of Palestine passes to United Kingdom; Bigger Pogroms in east Europe as a result of post-war problems

1920’s Zionist youth movements become popular in Europe, most are socialist in nature; larger kibbutzim founded in Palestine (Ein Harod begins with 215 members c. 1920)

1921 Bloody anti-Jewish riots in Jerusalem

1929 Bloody anti-Jewish riots in Hebron

1928  Chever Hakvutzot founded, stress on small kibbutzim, (<200 kibutzniks each)

1936-1939 Palestinian “Great Uprising” 

1948 Israel founded, Kibbutzim reach their peak

Kibbutzim population growth:

1909- 12

1922- 700

1927- 4,000

1937- 25,000

Kibbutz characteristics:

Jewish, but not religious:  Shabbat still observed, sortof, Bar Mitzvah’s celebrated, Yom Kippur used as a day to discuss future of Kibbutz

The members of the First Aliya had been religious, but the members of the Second Aliya, of whom the founders of Degania were a tiny subsection, were not. Although they were settling in the land of the Bible, these young people were not the type to attend synagogue. To their minds, Orthodox Judaism was a hindrance for the Jewish people. The spiritualism of the pioneers of the kibbutz movement consisted of mystical feelings about Jewish work, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz

Environmentally aware:  Tree planting, Swamp draining, Tu B’shvat holiday revived.

In addition to redeeming the Jewish nation through work, there was also an element of redeeming Eretz Yisrael, Palestine, in the kibbutz ideology. In Anti-Zionist literature that was circulating around Eastern Europe, Palestine was mocked as "dos gepeigerte land"—"the country that had died." Kibbutz members took pleasure in bring the land back to life by planting trees, draining swamps, and countless other activities to make the land more fertile. In soliciting donations, kibbutzim and other Zionist settlement activities presented themselves as "making the desert bloom

Leftist and Utopian

The first kibbutzniks hoped to be more than plain farmers in Palestine. They even hoped for more than a Jewish homeland there: they wanted to create a new type of society where there would be no exploitation of anyone and where all would be equal. The early kibbutzniks wanted to be both free from working for others and from the guilt of exploiting hired work. Thus was born the idea that Jews would band together, holding their property in common, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

Naive

Members of a kibbutz, or kibbutzniks, like other participants in the Zionist movement, did not predict that there would be conflict between Jews and Arabs over Palestine. Mainstream Zionists predicted that Arabs would be grateful for the economic benefits that the Jews would bring. The left wing of the kibbutz movement believed that the enemies of the Arab peasants were Arab landowners (called effendis), not Jewish fellow farmers. By the late 1930s reality had dashed these notions of class solidarity and kibbutzniks began to assume a military role in the growing yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine).

Communal and informal:  Meetings held around campfires

Women’s roles more equal, less defined

No money or personal property

Children raised together in Children’s societies

Drawbacks:

Parasites

No personal funds, (if you need something not found on the kibbutz, too bad)

Gossip

No personal choice of work assignment

Job rotation, no specialization

Kibbutzim today:

Less communal:  personal money, property, childrearing

Less prestigious

Less idealistic

Objective 3: Given the fact that utopian communities always fail (usually sooner rather than later), what historical critique of utopias is possible beyond “They don’t work” or “It’s futile?” (For instance, the fact that utopias always fail depends on the prior fact that people continue to imagine or attempt utopias.)

3a. What relations develop between fictional and actual utopian communities? What has been the historical impact of utopian fictions?

3e. What social structures, units, or identities does utopia expose, extend, or frustrate? What changes in child-rearing, feeding, marriage, aging, etc. result? (Social units or structures: person-individual, gender, sex, family [nuclear or extended], community, village/town/city, class, ethnicity, farm, region, tribe, clan, union, nation, ecosystem, planet.)