After Failed Socialist Experiment, Most of Israel’s Collective Farms Opt for Capitalism

Kfar Blum, a kibbutz in northern Israel, began as a collective farm run on socialist principles. As times changed, so did Kfar Blum and other kibbutzes, going into businesses like Kfar Blum's hotel pictured here. As they did, they found they had to become less socialist. Courtesy of Kfar Blum.

Laurie Rimon fell in love with the Israeli collective farm of Kfar Blum after spending a high school year there in 1969–1970. She emigrated from the United States to Israel as soon as she graduated from high school in 1971. She’s now a dual citizen.

Rimon remembers a crucial change in her outlook toward the Jewish state’s distinctive voluntary collective farms, called kibbutzes.