Tikvah Fellow
Academic Year 2009-2010
Avital Margalit
Avital Margalit is a graduate of Tel Aviv University in Law (LL.B) and in Sociology and Psychology (B.A.), and a graduate of Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at Berkeley (LL.M., J.S.D.). She teaches courses on property law and the sociology of law at the Law Faculty of Bar Ilan University. Her research focuses on law and reconciliation, the social and cultural aspects of property relationships, and the legal history of the kibbutz. For more information, please click here.
Research
Law, Norms and Values in the Transformation of the Kibbutz
The history of the kibbutz embodies to a large extent the social history of the State of Israel, echoing its transformation from a collectivist welfare minded society to a market oriented individualized society.
The extensive body of literature studying the kibbutz has overlooked the fascinating life of the kibbutz as a legal entity and its intricate relationship with state law. This research project examines the relationship between law and social values in the transformation of the kibbutz since its formative years (the 1920s-1930s) to its current crisis and modifications. The project perceives formal and informal law as a constitutive as well as a regulative mechanism within the broad context of the social history of the Jewish society in Palestine and later in the State of Israel.
The research will study the question of legality in the kibbutz and its relations to kibbutz values and norms. It will explore the emergence of an awareness of the legal realm in the life of the kibbutz and its members. It will look at the changes in the internal culture of the kibbutz and its mechanisms of social control, as well as at the changes in the legal environment in Israel generally and the interaction and mutually intertwined influences of the various levels of legality.
This study offers a new perspective for analyzing the history of the kibbutz and its dynamic relationship with the Israeli society. It also offers a comprehensive examination of the process by which law came to the fore of the everyday life of the kibbutz as an organization, and a close look at the internal and external forces contributing to this process. It reflects on and critically examines the literature on legalization processes within organizations as well as on the literature on common- resources-regimes and their legal environment.
