{"id":1180,"date":"2020-08-16T15:49:53","date_gmt":"2020-08-16T12:49:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/?p=1180"},"modified":"2020-08-16T15:54:35","modified_gmt":"2020-08-16T12:54:35","slug":"the-last-remnants-of-the-israeli-left-new-york-times-april-27-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/2020\/08\/16\/the-last-remnants-of-the-israeli-left-new-york-times-april-27-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last Remnants of the Israeli Left (New York Times, April 27, 2020)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Last Remnants of the Israeli Left<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

If you seek the socialist vision of this country\u2019s founders, it\u2019s no longer in the Knesset \u2014 it\u2019s on the wall.<\/p>\n

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By\u00a0Matti Friedman<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The New York Times<\/em>, April 27, 2020<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Children<\/picture><\/div>
Children playing in the garden in the new neighborhood in Kibbutz Ma\u2019aleh Ha-Hamisha.\u00a0<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Dan Balilty for The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
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MA\u2019ALEH HA-HAMISHA, Israel \u2014 In a modest building at this kibbutz in the hills outside Jerusalem, brawny workers in strong colors labor across three high walls, breaking rocks and plowing dark earth. Forgotten, then rediscovered, they\u2019ve been here since 1953. They stare back at you, confident and grave, like saints in a medieval church. They want to tell you something.<\/p>\n

Not many are listening. This kibbutz, founded 82 years ago as a commune that grew peaches and cherries, was privatized in 2005. Where the orchards once stood are new rows of homes built for the next generation: middle-class houses that evoke not socialism but the suburbs. One of the last reminders of what this place was, and why it was founded, are the workers on the wall.<\/p>\n

Art, as one ideologue put it in the heyday of the kibbutz movement, is \u201ca mission, not a game.\u201d This mural, and similar works that are now being rescued from oblivion and neglect around Israel, were created to express the hopes of their creators, the socialists who built the kibbutz and founded the state, and whose Labor Party dominated Israeli politics for decades.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n