Kesher Talk

Hippy-dippy Kibbutzim are a bit different now...: 81 years after its utopian socialist founding, Kibbutz Beit Alfa has an economy centered on industry rather than agriculture, based largely on the manufacture and export of para-military equipment, most recently a controversial deal to supply riot-control hardware to President Robert Mugabe's pariah regime in Zimbabwe.

"Like many utopias, when Beit Alfa was implemented in practice it became part of an economic and political framework," says Yisrael Bartal, a Hebrew University historian. "It adjusted itself to concrete reality."

posted by Howard @ 6/11/2002 10:42:16 AM