The Moshav
The first moshav (plural,
moshavim) was established in the Jezreel,
or Yizreel, Valley (Emeq, Yizreel is also
seen as the Valley of Esdraelon in English)
in 1921. In 1986 about 156,700 Israelis
lived and worked on 448 moshavim, the great
majority divided among eight federations.
There are two types of moshavim, the more
numerous (405) moshavim ovdim, and the moshavim
shitufim. The former relies on cooperative
purchasing of supplies and marketing of
produce; the family or household is, however,
the basic unit of production and consumption.
The moshav shitufi form is closer to the
collectivity of the kibbutz: although consumption
is family-or household-based, production
and marketing are collective. Unlike the
moshavim ovdim, land is not allotted to
households or individuals, but is collectively
worked.
Because the moshav form retained the family as the
center of social life and eschewed bold experiments
with communal child-rearing or equality of the sexes,
it was much more attractive to traditional Oriental
immigrants in the 1950s and early 1960s than was the
more communally radical kibbutz.
For this reason, the kibbutz has remained basically
an Ashkenazi institution, whereas the moshav has not. On the contrary,
the so-called immigrants' moshav (moshav olim) was one
of the most-used and successful forms of absorption
and integration of Oriental immigrants, and it allowed
them a much steadier ascent into the middle class than
did life in some development towns.
Like the kibbutzim, moshavim since 1967 have relied
increasingly on outside--particularly Arab--labor. Financial
instabilities in the early 1980s have hit many moshavim
hard, as has the problem of absorbing all the children
who might wish to remain in the community. By the late
1980s, more and more moshav members were employed in
nonagricultural sectors outside the community, so that
some moshavim were coming to resemble suburban or exurban
villages whose residents commute to work. In general
moshavim never enjoyed the elite status accorded to
kibbutzim; correspondingly they have not suffered a
decline in prestige in the 1970s and 1980s.
Sources: Library of Congress |