One cannot ignore the trend: While the 1990s and the early 2000s saw a mass desertion of the younger generation of kibbutzniks, who left for the city, in recent years the trend has reversed. More and more former kibbutz members in the age group of 30 to 40 (and even 40 plus) are making their way back home to the supportive framework of the kibbutz, the unique form of Israeli collective community based on socialist ideals. Quite a number of them are couples with young children, born after they left. Back then, in the years of mass desertion, it was the collapse of the socialist model and the economic difficulties encountered by the kibbutzim that prompted their youth to leave for the big city. But these days, the ex-kibbutzniks are turning their backs on the pronounced individualism and lack of solidarity in Israeli society, not to mention the skyrocketing cost of living, with which they cannot cope. It's the kibbutzim nowadays, of all frameworks, that can still provide an economic safety net and a reassuring sense of community — and this not least is thanks to the economic recovery programs and privatization they have undergone. Having been restructured, the majority are only partially cooperative today.
Eyal Miller, 31, who left Kibbutz Beit Zera in northern Israel and moved to Jerusalem seven years ago, is currently thinking of going back to his birthplace. He told Al-Monitor, "I keep telling my friends from the kibbutz that we, me and my spouse, are going to return home in a year or two." Miller added, "But they don't take me seriously; they say that at 60, I'll still live in Jerusalem and talk of returning in a year or two. Yet there is a real desire to return. It is driven by the exorbitant housing prices and the difficulty to make ends meet due to the high cost of living in the city versus the sense of community, solidarity and cooperation in the kibbutz."
