Mid-Life Crisis, Kibbutz Style

Abstract

Yahel and Lotan, two Reform kibbutzim founded in the late 1970s and early 1980s, constitute the focus of this paper. Although the two shared identical ideological and religious goals from the outset, the succeeding (and significant) differences between the two kibbutzim may be attributed largely to the few years separating their respective age cohorts. Under consideration here is the phenomenon of the mid-life crisis, which in the collective society takes on collective import, and in which the age-skewed demography ensures that virtually the entire cadre of "elders" undergoes the same psychological process at the identical time. Yahel members have become more open to institutional compromise. It is hypothesized that Lotan, a few years behind Yahel in collective age, will undergo a similar significant transformation in ideology and administration as it, too, approaches the mid-life years.