Amoshav (Hebrew:מוֹשָׁב, pluralמוֹשָׁבִיםmoshavim,lit. "settlement, village") is a type ofIsraeli village or town orJewish settlement, in particular a type ofcooperative agricultural community of individual farmspioneered by theLabour Zionists between 1904 and 1914, during what is known as thesecond wave ofaliyah.[1] A resident or a member of a moshav can be called a "moshavnik" (מוֹשַׁבְנִיק). There is an umbrella organization, theMoshavim Movement.
The moshavim are similar tokibbutzim with an emphasis on communitarian, individualist labour.[2] They were designed as part of the Zionist state-building programme following the green revolutionYishuv (Hebrew for 'settlement') in theBritish Mandate of Palestine during the early 20th century, but in contrast to thecollective farming kibbutzim, farms in a moshav tended to be individually owned but of fixed and equal size. Workers produced crops and other goods on their properties through individual or pooled labour with the profit and foodstuffs going to provide for themselves. Moshavim are governed by an elected council (Hebrew:ועד,romanized: va'ad,lit. 'committee'). Community projects and facilities were financed by a special tax (Hebrew:מס ועד,romanized: mas va'ad,lit. 'committee tax'). This tax was equal for all households of the community.
There are several organisational variants, of which the most common are:
The first moshav,Nahalal, was established in theJezreel Valley (also known as the Valley of Esdraelon) on September 11, 1921. By 1986 about 156,700 Israelis lived and worked on 448 moshavim; the great majority of these are divided among eight federations.
Because the moshav organisation retained the family as the centre of social life, it was much more attractive to traditionalMizrahi immigrants in the 1950s and early 1960s; they eschewed bold experiments, like communal child-rearing or equality of the sexes, practiced by communal kibbutz. These so-called "immigrants' moshavim" (Hebrew:מושב עולים,romanized: moshav olim) were one of the most-used and successful forms of absorption and integration of Mizrahi Jewish immigrants; it allowed them a much steadier ascent into themiddle class than did life in somedevelopment towns.
Since theSix-Day War in 1967, both moshavim and kibbutzim have relied increasingly on outside—includingPalestinian—labour. Financial instabilities in the early 1980s hit many moshavim hard, as did their high birth rate and the problem of absorbing all the children who might wish to remain in the community. By the late 1980s, moshav members increasingly came to be employed in non-agricultural sectors outside the community, so that some moshavim began to resemblesuburbs orcommuter towns whose residents commute to work. In general, moshavim never enjoyed the "political elite" status afforded to kibbutzim during the period ofIsraeli Labor Party dominance; correspondingly the moshavim did not endure the decline in prestige experienced by kibbutzim in the 1970s and 1980s, during the period ofLikud dominance starting in 1977.
[...] the format of amoshbutz, a hybrid of moshav and kibbutz.
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