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In short, a kibbutz is a collective farm in Israel.
During the establishment years, kibbutzim (pl. of kibbutz) were essential to the development of the Jewish State. There have been something like six major waves of Jewish immigration to the Holy Land over the pass century.
The absorbtion of peoples from a variety of educational, geographic, vocational, and linguistic backgrounds made it imperative that an effective system of absorbtion be found.
On the kibbutz, new immigrant-inductees learned Hebrew and were trained in professions that were essential to the young State's survival, i.e. farming and manufacturing.
Jewish ideologues and refugees alike, fleeing pogroms, Nazism, or hostile Arab countries, would come to Israel with only the shirts on their back. The kibbutz, although founded on democratic-socialist principles, behaved more like a large family than a small-city state. Thus the kibbutz became home to numerous Jews who were made to feel homeless in other lands.
Today Israel is a highly industrialized country. Many kibbutzim have tried to adapt, and there are a handful that remain competitive in high-tech horticulture and a variety of other businesses. However it was necessity that made the kibbutz so successful. Once the country developed a sound economic infrastructure, the kibbutz's importance and popularity began to decline.
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