This past weekend, my university took the exchange students into the desert, where we spent 3 days with a Kibbutz community in Ketura, Israel.
In the most basic definition, a Kibbutz is a collective community in Israel based on agriculture, manufacture, and/or environmental science. They choose to live together far away from city life; they emphasize the value of sharing together; and they work for the collective good of each community.
When I was first introduced to the concept of a Kibbutz, I found myself quick to question the motive behind living away from society. I though that it would be a disservice to both themselves and to the larger society if they worked for their own communities, kept to their own communities, and stayed on their communities (typically in the desert or mountain) for the majority of their time without reaching out elsewhere. For me, the idea of staying far away from the city and modern society was unheard of and hard to accept.
This weekend, however, proved to me otherwise. While I have come to the realization that Kibbutz life is only for those who would be willing to make the commitment, I also learned that in staying and working together as a community, Kibbutz members also contribute to the larger society in ways that we can't as an individual. In Ketura, I learned that together, these Kibbutz members build a system of reusable energy, where waste materials, such as bread, feces, or anything else, can be turned into electricity. This incredible system is then introduced and used as an energy source in lower-income villages in Ethiopia.
