Time, Collectivity and Self-Formation in the Shomriya Educational Institution, 1937-1953

Kibbutz Shomriya was established in the 1930s as an educational framework for adolescents from Hashomer Hatzair kibbutzim in Israel. As such, it adopted innovative pedagogical methods to train youth for an active life in the socialist utopia of the kibbutz. A close reading of archival material written by the young people themselves allows us to follow their process of self-formation at Shomriya, with a focus on of their perception and configuration of two aspects of time: linear time, encompassing individual maturation and group cohesion; and circular time based on the emotional intensity of daily activities. The relationship between the two establishes an ethics of time-use, the transformation of private, subjective time into collective time through which the young people of Shomriya learned to develop a collective self, valued above the individual self.