See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297686928 The kibbutz and the ma’abara (transit camp): The case of the Upper Galilee kibbutzim and Kiryat Shmona, 1949–1953 Article in Journal of Israeli History · March 2016 DOI: 10.1080/13531042.2016.1140878 CITATIONS READS 2 394 1 author: Amir Goldstein Tel-Hai Academic College 63 PUBLICATIONS 24 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Microhistory of Kiryat shmona and Hula Valley View project Zionist right - the road to power View project All content following this page was uploaded by Amir Goldstein on 15 October 2017. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. Journal of Israeli History Politics, Society, Culture ISSN: 1353-1042 (Print) 1744-0548 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fjih20 The kibbutz and the ma’abara (transit camp): The case of the Upper Galilee kibbutzim and Kiryat Shmona, 1949–1953 Amir Goldstein To cite this article: Amir Goldstein (2016) The kibbutz and the ma’abara (transit camp): The case of the Upper Galilee kibbutzim and Kiryat Shmona, 1949–1953, Journal of Israeli History, 35:1, 17-37, DOI: 10.1080/13531042.2016.1140878 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13531042.2016.1140878 Published online: 09 Mar 2016. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 94 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fjih20 Download by: [77.138.104.170] Date: 12 September 2016, At: 12:40 JOURNAL OF ISRAELI HISTORY, 2016 VOL. 35, NO. 1, 17–37 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13531042.2016.1140878 The kibbutz and the ma’abara (transit camp): The case of the Upper Galilee kibbutzim and Kiryat Shmona, 1949–1953 Amir Goldstein Department of Education and Multidisciplinary Studies, Tel Hai College, Kiryat Shmona, Israel ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY This article examines the relations between the kibbutzim of the Accepted 11 November 2015 Upper Galilee and the Khalsa (Kiryat Shmona) transit camp in its early years. This test case represents a microcosm of the encounter KEYWORDS Kiryat Shmona; Hula between veteran pioneers and new immigrants, between Ashkenazim Valley; kibbutz; Mizrahim; and Mizrahim, between those who regarded themselves as the immigrant absorption avant-garde of the Labor Zionist movement and new immigrants whose fate symbolized the mass aliyah. The kibbutzim played a decisive role in the establishment of Kiryat Shmona. Their sense of responsibility, compassion, and their genuine desire to help develop social and communal services were no less powerful than their trend towards isolation. However, the kibbutz members’ orientalist views undermined their ability to attain their objectives. Faced with what they perceived as the paternalistic approach of the kibbutzim, the inhabitants of the transit camp, especially the Yemenite immigrants, refused to submit to the powerful pressure exerted upon them to abandon their traditional Jewish culture and manifested their loyalty to their own values. The kibbutz and the ma’abara (transit camp) are two icons of Israeli society, each a code word for the identity of a sociocultural group. The kibbutz reached its zenith as a ground- breaking socialist Zionist creation even before the establishment of the State of Israel. The ma’abara came into existence as part of the young state’s attempt to deal with the waves of mass immigration.1 Despite the significant differences in the time and circumstances of their appearance, the two words kibbutz and ma’abara symbolize the powerful emotions and scars left by their historical encounter during the early years of the state. The time that has elapsed has not dulled the intensity of that clash. On the contrary, in many instances, the adversarial dimensions of the encounter have been amplified within the collective mem- ory of each group and have found expression in the political arena. The changes that have occurred within and between these social and cultural groups over the years have had little influence on the interpretations given to the relations between the kibbutz and the ma’abara during the formative years of the state and Israeli society. Despite the problems faced by the kibbutz movement and its declining status within Israeli society, it remains a symbol of the CONTACT Amir Goldstein [email protected] © 2016 Taylor & Francis 18 A. GOLDSTEIN Labor movement, of secular Ashkenazi Zionism, of the pioneer veterans who received the Middle Eastern and North African immigrants (along with refugees and Holocaust survi- vors from Europe). The ma’abara evokes discrimination, exclusion, and marginalization. As a test case, this article examines the relations between the kibbutzim of the Upper Galilee and the Khalsa transit camp (later to become the town of Kiryat Shmona) in the early years of the state. Given the resentments and acrimony surrounding the subject, which tend to produce biased, accusatory, or apologetic descriptions of the relations, this article seeks to understand what happened by examining texts from that period and the historical context. Study of the kibbutz and the ma’abara in the Hula Valley touches on many areas of research: the study of Israel’s first decade; the mass immigration and the creation of the country’s periphery; the Labor movement and the kibbutz movement prior to and at the time of the establishment of the state; the relations between different ethnic Jewish groups in Israel; and processes of settlement and urbanization.2 This article constitutes an initial stepping stone in the longer and more complex research process that is required to undertake an in-depth analysis of similar instances of relations between development towns and the kibbutz movement within a broad range of social, cultural, economic, educational, political, and geographic contexts. The northern Hula Valley region serves as a fascinating laboratory for our purposes owing to two distinctive features: first, its location, at the northern tip of the country, near the border and far from the central institutions that were set up during the early years of the state; and second, its population, which, following the War of Independence, became unusually homogeneous, consisting almost entirely of kibbutzim, with the Committee of the Upper Galilee Kibbutzim Bloc (which will be referred to as the Bloc Committee) exerting a powerful influence on the development of the area.3 The kibbutz’s influence was mani- fest in the processes of establishment of the ma’abara in the Galilee Panhandle that would, within a short time, become one of the largest ma’abarot in the country, despite its distance from the country’s center. Our test case represents a microcosm of the encounter between veteran pioneers and new immigrants, between Ashkenazi and Mizrahi ethnic traditions, between a group that regarded itself as the avant-garde of the Zionist Labor movement and immigrants who experienced the hardships of adaptation to a new environment.4 The article will focus on the events that transpired between the spring of 1948, when the State of Israel was established and the Arab inhabitants of Khalsa fled their homes, until the spring of 1953, when Kiryat Shmona became an independent municipality, officially separate from the Upper Galilee Regional Council. It was during these formative years that the dilemmas and deliberations concerning the new Jewish settlement in Khalsa – which became Kiryat Shmona – were most intense and the major decisions made. The sources on which this study is based were gathered mainly from the small but rich archives of the Upper Galilee kibbutzim, along with some documents from Israel’s central archives. The culture of discourse and documentation characterizing the kibbutzim has left us with many valuable documents, such as kibbutz newsletters, letters, and protocols of meetings. These are open and frank, exposing the opinions, perceptions, and feelings of the kibbutz members. The discrepancy between the quantity and quality of sources for the Upper Galilee kibbutzim and the almost nonexistent corresponding documentation by inhabitants of the ma’abara represents a major methodological deficiency. In view of this gap, the focus on the kibbutz perspective on the ma’abara is complemented by an effort to extract the point of view of the inhabitants of Kiryat Shmona from the available documents. JOURNAL OF ISRAELI HISTORy 19 Of course, for all of the location’s uniqueness, what happened in the Hula Valley in the early years of the state did not take place in a vacuum. It must be understood within the broader context of the dilemmas that faced the kibbutz movement in the transition from the Yishuv period to the state, and the processes that took place within it and between it and the young state and its leadership. The kibbutz movement was rgarded for many years as the spearhead of the Zionist movement, the Labor movement, and the Yishuv in general. It was viewed, by the Zionist leadership and by itself, as a “service elite,” active in different spheres: settlement of the land, agricultural development, and the nurturing of civil and military leadership.5 By the time the state was declared, not only were many of its members worn out by their years of intensive activity but there was also a deepening rift between David Ben-Gurion (and others among the national leadership) and the leaders of the major kibbutz movements on fundamental issues that had arisen in the course of the consolidation of Israeli statehood. Both the United Kibbutz Movement (Hakibbutz Hame’uhad) and the National Kibbutz Movement (Hakibbutz Ha’artzi) had remained affiliated to the left-wing opposition party Mapam, angered by the dismantling of the Palmach, the pre-state elite military force in which kibbutz members predominated.