Divorce in the Kibbutz: Lessons To Be Drawn

Abstract

The kibbutz in Israel constitutes one of the few places in Western culture where one is able to examine the essence of an "authentic emotional divorce" because of the minor role of factors that are extraneous to the disruption of the emotional marital attachment itself. This is the case because the kibbutz is a society that is based and functions upon principles that neutralize to a large extent the legal, economic, and co-parenting obstacles to a constructive divorce. Although there are significant differences in the severity of the postdivorce conflict, the divorce crisis is rather similar in kibbutz and non-kibbutz settings regarding both the quality of the emotional responses and the nature of the influencing factors--thus pointing to the ubiquitousness of the human condition.

Ecosystemic consultation in the kibbutz: social process and narrative in two cases of community “epidemic”

“…Serving as medical director of the Kibbutz Child and Family Clinics during the past 35 years, Mordecai Kaffman initiated a wide array of ecosystemic programs for problems such as anorexia nervosa (Kaffman & Sadeh, 1989), divorce counseling (Kaffman, 1993), and the community care of chronic mental patients (Kaffman, 1985;Kaffman, 1984).…”