END OF AN ERA

Reporter: David Hardaker

KERRY O'BRIEN: Over the years, tens of thousands of young Australians have travelled to Israel to sample the Kibbutz's collectivist way of life, a philosophy which, put simply, was to give as much as you can and take only what you need. The Kibbutz movement has been a remarkable experiment in how humans can live together, but it's now facing the end of an era. After almost 100 years, Israel's first Kibbutz, the model for all that followed, has become a victim of market forces and has given up on the collectivist dream. This report from the ABC's Middle East correspondent, David Hardaker.

DAVID HARDAKER: The sea of Galilee in the north of Israel, home to dreams of utopia. For close to 100 years, people have worked to make Kibbutz Degania the perfect community, a place where all would get an equal share of the wealth, whether foreman or worker. Now, though, this experiment in human nature is over. Kibbutz Degania has concluded that not all animals are equal after all.

GAD HOROVITZ, KIBBUTZ DEGANIA: This is my whole life. Not only the place, but the idea.

TAMAR GAL-SARAI, KIBBUTZ DEGANIA: We were too naive and we believed that everybody would work so hard all their lives in order to create the comfort for everybody, and we woke up. This is where it all started in 1910.

DAVID HARDAKER: Tamar Gal Sarai forebears helped found this Kibbutz, 97 years ago.

TAMAR GAL-SARAI: They had a dining room, communal showers and communal bathrooms.

DAVID HARDAKER: Her grandfather and grandmother were the pioneers, part of a group of a dozen who came to carve out a Jewish homeland based on the principles of hard work and support for each other.

TAMAR GAL-SARAI: It was a commune. Everything was shared. The principle was that each would take only according to needs and contribute as much as they can. That was the desire, that was the utopia.

DAVID HARDAKER: This utopia was the inspiration for hundreds of other kibbutzes. The tough life of the commune produced a special breed a disproportionate number of its men and women went on to become the elite of Israel's politics and military. The collective was also a big family for refugees from Europe, like Chezi Dar, who arrived as an 11-year-old orphan.

PROFESSOR CHEZI DAR, KIBBUTZ DEGANIA: I came here and I was accepted, very good, and from the beginning I felt that I came to a home.

DAVID HARDAKER: Professor Dar lived through the most ideological years of the Kibbutz. Private ownership was forbidden. The commune owned everything, down to the clothes on your back. All of life's decisions were taken by a vote of the collective.

TAMAR GAL-SARAI: We had to get special permission if it was something that the Kibbutz didn't need. If we wanted to go on an overseas trip, we had to ask permission. But when you live through this, you don't really feel that you are being controlled by the system, because the system gives you so much.

DAVID HARDAKER: Yet it seems people weren't happy with that?

TAMAR GAL-SARAI: People who didn't like it got up and left.

DAVID HARDAKER: The iron will of the collective. It built successful industries like this kibbutz factory, which manufactures diamond tipped machining tools. It emerged, though, that some on the kibbutz weren't as industrious as others. Money and reward for effort became a flashpoint.

TAMAR GAL-SARAI: You and I, the same age, the same number of children, the same family status, you work 10 hours a day and I don't get up in the morning. At the end of the month we would get the same budget. About 10 years ago it started to bother people.

DAVID HARDAKER: The fact that people were paid the same, no matter what they did, even if they did nothing, became a crunch question. Indeed, it went to the very heart of the collectivist dream here at Kibbutz Degania. Over in the kibbutz banana plantation, Gad Horovitz doesn't like the talk of change. Now nudging 70 years of age, Mr Horovitz grew up knowing the first pioneers.

GAD HOROVITZ: If I work harder or faster than somebody I don't care. I cherish the idea because it's good for me. If I look around me, if people take advantage of me, it is just natural. I wouldn't change it. I wouldn't change the way of life because of it.

DAVID HARDAKER: But the times have passed Gad Horovitz and the kibbutz by. Market forces have crushed the ideal, and young people have been deserting the kibbutz for the outside world where, the harder you work, the more you get. The communal dining room is emptier than it once was and meals are no longer free, though the spirit of the revolution does live on for some teenagers.

KIBBUTZ RESIDENT: The idea of collective, it sounds to me like a dream.

MA'AYAN GOODMAN, KIBBUTZ DEGANIA: The world is changing and people want different things. People think about money and to be more by their own, not share everything with other members.

DAVID HARDAKER: In the last month, the mother of all Israel's kibbutzes finally caved in. By a vote of 85 per cent, it decided the individual could and should be paid according to effort. It was a change too late to keep Professor Dar's family together on the kibbutz.

CHEZI DAR: I never thought of leaving the kibbutz. I was I felt here very good and I was quite sad when my children left the kibbutz.

TAMAR GAL-SARAI: Every year that went by, we opened that much more towards the outside world and we realised that it's OK to not be so naive. I don't think it's the end of the dream. I think it's taking the dream and putting it into a wonderful reality that will allow us to maintain our ideals. So, no, the dream hasn't died. We woke up.

KERRY O'BRIEN: David Hardaker reporting from Jerusalem.