|
Oct. 18, 2013
By instalment for everything
Kibbutz finances kept simple by practice of paying in tashlumim.
EMILY SINGER
The first time the Israeli supermarket check-out girl asked if I wanted to pay for my groceries in tashlumim (monthly instalments), I laughed out loud. I’ve never even bought a car in monthly instalments.
“Won’t I just have more groceries to buy next week?” I said to the girl. “If I can’t pay this week, then boy am I in trouble!”
I don’t laugh anymore. As it turns out, they ask because there are people who truly can’t afford their weekly groceries. Instead, they buy with money they don’t have, pushing off a growing debt for one day when things will be better. Or to view it from a different angle (and to review some past vocabulary), they say, “yihyeh b’seder!” “everything will be fine!”
In 1959, Israeli musician Albert Shitrit wrote a spirited folk song entitled “Everything in Tashlumim,” about how you can buy anything you want as long as you pay for it in instalments. After singing that his whole salary goes to the grocery store, his wife comes home with new clothes and, in a later verse, new furniture. “How did you buy them?” he asks. The triumphant reply of the chorus: “In tashlumim! Everything in tashlumim!”
Aside from paying for everything in tashlumim, Israelis are known to live in debt. You can regularly go into overdraft at the bank until you are more than a month’s salary in “minus” (pronounced mee-noose).
Perhaps the Israeli attitude stems back to the 1970s when inflation was so bad that people spent their money as soon as they earned it because they knew it wouldn’t be worth anything the next day. Maybe it started with the kibbutzim, where people didn’t have to concern themselves with money at all. Traditional kibbutzim were based on the socialist model that everyone works according to his or her ability and receives according to her or his need. At a time of economic uncertainty, it was an invaluable way to ensure that everyone contributes and all are taken care of, but it didn’t exactly teach personal money management skills.
In the last few decades, many kibbutzim have gone through a process of privatization. Salaries are no longer pooled. Jobs are no longer rotated. Dining halls are no longer shared. Many kibbutzniks don’t even know how to prepare simple meals. For members in their 50s and 60s who have never had to find their own work or manage their own budget, this change has proved challenging, if not devastating.
On our kibbutz, in the early days, members would receive measured allowances for all their needs. Not a salary, but rather, a certain budget for food, a different amount for clothing, etc. There was a smoking allowance, but it could only be used for cigarettes. Non-smokers could not take that money and splurge on organic bean sprouts or aromatherapy. If you wanted those sorts of things, the kibbutz would have to vote on whether they were perceived as a communal necessity.
When immigrants from other countries would go home to visit their families, the decision would be made communally. They were not permitted to leave more than once every five years, and not at the expense of the kibbutz. Since no one had their own money, this meant they could only go if their families back home were willing and able to pay.
One of the older members of the kibbutz tells a story about when she was in charge of the makolet, the kibbutz store, more than 30 years ago. We live on top of a mountain that is a 20-minute drive from the nearest town. It was not practical to bring ice cream home from the supermarket, so she decided to start selling it in the makolet.
The day the big Strauss truck arrived to deliver the freezer, the kibbutz administration was in a meeting. The treasurer saw the truck and said, “What is that? We never approved the sale of ice cream. We never even discussed it!”
He ran out in front of the truck, flagged down the driver and demanded he turn around and take his freezer away. No one could just make a change like that without a group process!
In the meeting, the members discussed the issue. They weighed the pros and cons. It was hard to get ice cream when you lived on top of a mountain, and surely it would be refreshing on a hot day. On the other hand, maybe it wouldn’t be fair to everyone. Some kids would have ice cream, while others could only afford to munch on Bamba. One mustn’t be hasty about such decisions.
That night, they voted to bring the ice cream. Everyone was in favor except the fellow who had stopped the truck and another guy who didn’t like ice cream. My friend called the company back, but it was too late. There were a limited number of freezers, and they had already redirected ours to another location. It would be another year before the members of Maale Gilboa would enjoy frozen treats in the comfort of their own homes.
Kibbutzim have changed from the days of “each according to his needs.” There are some traditional hold outs, places where members still eat all their meals together in a dining hall and decide through group meetings who can go to college and who gets to use the profits from their plastics factory to build an extension onto their home.
Most of the kibbutzim that have succeeded in maintaining a shared economy are the wealthy ones, particularly those that ventured beyond agriculture. Kibbutz Lavi, with its synagogue furniture factory and their five-star hotel, has just finished putting extensions onto everyone’s homes (after heated discussions about who gets their extension done first). Tirat Tzvi, with their monopoly on Israeli cold cuts, and Sde Eliyahu, with their Bio-Bee pest-management industry, maintain a traditional kibbutz infrastructure.
Maale Gilboa, our little “kibbutz that could,” with its carrot crop (gezer Gilboa) and its dairy farm, nearly dissolved in the late 1990s. They went through a process of privatization that was necessary financially, but that sent away many of its most idealistic members. It was saved in part when Yeshivah Maale Gilboa, the yeshivah of the religious kibbutz movement, took root here. First came the rabbis and their families, expanding the population. The yeshivah purchased the dining hall and the kibbutz inn.
The big boom came years later with the greatest industry of all. Graduates from the yeshivah – young, ideological, well-educated young men – brought their new families to the kibbutz to live. Many did not become members, but bought plots of land in the residents’ neighborhood, boosting the economy as well as the social and religious life. We don’t understand how these young families are able to purchase real estate, the vast majority of them working as teachers, social workers and rabbis, but like the rest of the country, they squeeze the downpayment from a rock (or from a parent?), look to the sky and say, “yihyeh b’seder.”
There are still lingering signs of the traditional kibbutz that once was. The old apartments are not designed for hosting company; the kitchens consist of a sink and a tiny counter, with space for a small fridge or oven, and a combined dining/living room that barely holds a small couch and kitchen table. That was all you needed when everyone ate in the dining hall.
There are also remnants of the traditional beit yeladim, kids houses. With the founding of the kibbutzim, there was a belief that everything was shared, including children. Kids were not possessions of their parents, but rather young members of the larger community. In most of the traditional kibbutzim, babies were moved from their homes to the beit yeladim as early as six weeks of age, and raised by a rotating staff of kibbutz professionals.
On Maale Gilboa, kids never slept in kibbutz houses, but they spent a lot of time there. Today, they still go whenever there is no school, and on days when they are let out early. At first, I thought this was about babysitting for parents who work, but the beit yeladim staff takes their mandate very seriously. They are part of a conscious effort to instil kibbutz values of work, responsibility and cooperation. The kids volunteer in the branches of the kibbutz, they prepare their own meals, plan their own programming and do charity work, such as cooking and distributing food to poor people.
Unlike most schools in Israel, the kibbutz school has Fridays off. But Friday is not like North America’s Sunday – a day to rest. On the contrary, kibbutz kids are expected to work. My daughter works in the library and in the children’s houses. My oldest son works with the carrots, and is on call whenever something needs to be done, such as setting up for a communal event or for a bar or bat mitzvah party. My 12-year-old is also called in for work, including things like building and painting the new benches. Even my seven-year-old is involved when the “appearance committee” gets together to weed the gardens or collect trash.
Kibbutz life hasn’t done much for my own personal money management skills. One of the lingering “benefits” of kibbutz living is that you never have to spend any money. Anything you want on kibbutz goes on your tab. This is true at the store, but also for lectures and social events, fundraisers, post office expenses, and I just discovered that if I owe someone money I can just e-mail the treasurer and he will transfer the funds. The subtle difference between the new kibbutz and the old is that the money is actually being taken out of my bank account.
Every kibbutz has dealt with the changing reality in its own way. I believe ours has struck a nice balance between communal responsibility and personal autonomy. While salaries are no longer pooled and shared equally, members participate in a system of social welfare that aims at narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor. Salaries are taxed at a rate between 10 and 15 percent depending upon your income bracket, and then redistributed to families who fall below a certain income. Few families receive money on an ongoing basis. It is more often used for temporary circumstances such as maternity leave or someone going back to school for a higher degree, but it is also there for families who fall on bad times. The rest of the money goes to the kibbutz and to communal projects, including to improve the appearance of the kibbutz. The playground has fallen into disrepair and the synagogue needs expanding. Last year, we adopted a garin tzabar, a group of new immigrant lone soldiers.
Most people who live here are not actually members of the kibbutz. They live here as residents, purchasing land and paying a communal fee. Many kibbutzim have built resident neighborhoods in order to raise money. What makes ours stand out is that the residents are treated as full members of the community. They pay a fee that goes towards development and services, but more than that, they serve on committees, plan programs and are community leaders no less than members. The members would like others to join. It helps the kibbutz receive benefits from the state and makes the enterprise more stable. But they respect people’s individual choices.
Ross and I have considered becoming members. Ideologically, we’d like to do this one day but, financially, we’re not sure how we would afford the tax. In addition, as new members, we would have to pay $30,000 up front. We wonder where we would come up with this money and, indeed, where everyone else comes up with it. The executive director has assured us this is no problem: we can pay it in tashlumim.
Emily Singer is a teacher, social worker and freelance writer. She is currently working on two books. Singer and her husband, Ross, were rebbetzin and rabbi of Vancouver’s Shaarey Tefilah congregation until 2004. The Singers spent two years in Jerusalem and then moved to Baltimore, Md., where Ross was rabbi at Congregation Beth Tfiloh and Emily taught Judaic studies at Beth Tfiloh High School, until they moved to Israel in 2010. They have four children.
^TOP
|
