Page "Kibbutz" Paragraph 75

: The kibbutz was an original social creation, yet always a marginal phenomenon.

By the end of the 1920s no more than 4, 000 people, children included, lived on some thirty kibbutzim, and they amounted to a mere 2. 5 % of Palestine ’ s Jewish population.

The most important service the kibbutzim provided to the Jewish national struggle was military, not economic or social.

They were guardians of Zionist land, and their patterns of settlement would to a great extent determine the country ’ s borders.

The kibbutzim also had a powerful effect on the Zionist self-image.