Moshav - History

History

The first moshav, Nahalal, was established in the Jezreel 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 organization retained the family as the center of social life, it was much more attractive to traditional Mizrahi immigrants in the 1950s and early 1960s; they eschewed bold experiments, like communal child-rearing or equality of the sexes, practiced by the more radical communal kibbutz. These so-called "immigrants' moshav" (Hebrew: מושב עולים‎, moshav olim) were one of the most-used and successful forms of absorption and integration of Oriental immigrants; it allowed them a much steadier ascent into the middle class than did life in some development towns. For this reason, the moshav became largely a Mizrahi institution, whereas the kibbutz movement remained basically an Ashkenazi institution.

Since the 1967 war, both the moshavim and kibbutzim have relied increasingly on outside — particularly Arab — labor. 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 resemble suburban or exurban villages whose residents commute to work. In general, moshavim never enjoyed the "political elite" status afforded to kibbutzim during the period of Labor dominance; correspondingly the moshavim did not endure the decline in prestige experienced by kibbutzim in the 1970s and 1980s, during the period of Likud dominance starting in 1977.