Newsroom – California State University, Northridge

CSUN to Screen ‘Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment’

(NORTHRIDGE, Calif., May. 17th, 2012) ―

California State University, Northridge’s Jewish studies program will explore life in a kibbutz with the screening of “Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment,” on Sunday, June 3.

The documentary directed by Toby Perl Freilich will be shown at the Laemmle Fallbrook Theatre, located at 6731Fallbrook Ave. in West Hills.

The documentary tells the story of the kibbutz movement, started in 1909 by a small group of Jews who dreamed of having their own farm land in the home of their ancestors. Due to Israel’s tough desert conditions, individual farming would have been impossible. The kibbutz was created as a way to protect and provide through communal living.

The story is told through vintage and recent photographs and interviews with kibbutz members and ex-members. Freilich shows the utopian yet rigid and demanding elements of kibbutz life in its changing forms during the past century.

“The kibbutz never exceeded five percent of the Jewish population,” said CSUN Jewish studies professor Jody Myers. “But it had an outside influence on the state of Israel and its national myths. This unique communal movement symbolized aspirations for a Jewish homeland that eventually was overwhelmed by the capitalistic society that it had helped to foster.”

For more information and to RSVP, call the Jewish studies program at (818) 677-4724 or email jewish.studies@csun.edu.

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