PAULA R,AYMAN will not be killed. One kibbutz women said she felt the need to have many children, so that if she lost one she would stlll not be alone. Thus the political situation invades the most sacred moments of lite for a woman, and has continually undermined the possibillty of women gaining equality in the kibbutz, where to be male, fighter of the nation-state, is to be dominant. Conclusion W HEN the State first came into being, kibbutzniks carried on their leadership functions in ail spheres of national develo~ ment. Although less than 4 0/o of the population, the kibbutzniks often held 16-20 0/o of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) and Cabinet seats. As late as the 19'73war 18 o/o of ail Israeli casualties were klbbutzniks (25 0/o of the 1967War totals). Yet for two decades there has been clear indication of graduai reduction of kibbutz influence as an institutional force. When BenGurion took office, one of his first actions was the break-up of the kibbutz.based Palmach in favour of a state army. The Israeli Army (Israel Defence Forces) rather than frontier kibbutzim is today's main protector of Israeli military security. From the economic perspective the kibbutzim's position also altered. As kibbutzim began to industriallze they ran into the problem of balancing the prohibi• tion against hired labour with the necessities of a large factory plant. Moshavim and agrobusiness enterprises, which were not constrained in this way, increasingly undermined the national reliance on the kibbutzim as food suppliera. To offset the limitations on agricultural expansion, the kibbutz responded with industrialization but the problem of hired labour and greater dependence on capitalist investment bas created new complications. As Yonina.h Talmon notes of the process of kibbutz 'routi• nization': «As enterprises came to be managed on an entrepreneurial basis, the criteria of profit and cost-efficiency became increasingly im• portant. Divested of its special aura, (the kibbutz) economic actlvity turned into routine and individuals increasingly disassociated from the community11(18). This process, accompanied by the impact of increasing professionalism and bureaucratisation affected the possibillty of job-rotation 'and consequently increased dlfferentiation between workers - not only between kibbutzniks and hired labour but between men and women, skilled and unskilled workers. Work in itself 1s no longer as meaningful, no longer as self-tulfilling. The technJcian (18) Talmon, oP, clt. 134
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