Kibbutz fiction and Yishuv society on the eve of statehood: The Ma'agalot (Circles) affair of 1945

Abstract

The novel Circles (1945) by David Maletz, a founding member of Kibbutz Ein Harod, created a furor both in kibbutz society and among its readers in the Yishuv. The angry responses raise numerous questions about the status of kibbutz society at the time and the position of the writer in it. This article examines the reasons for the special interest in Maletz's book and considers its literary qualities. On the basis of the numerous responses to the book, it analyzes how kibbutz society was viewed in that period, both by its own members and by the Yishuv in general, and addresses the special dynamics of the work's reception in a totally ideological society. The case of Circles sheds light on the ways in which kibbutz literature participated in the ideological construction of the new society, while at the same time criticizing its most basic assumptions from within.