 Young Australians rejuvenate Israel's collective living movement with urban communes    The first night Melbourne-born Adiel Cohney lay down to sleep in his new home, 14,000 kilometres away, his bed was made and his dinner was cooked by six of his new community members
 Three years on, he remembers that as his head hit the pillow, he was thinking how "nurtured and cared for I was on that first day"
 Mr Cohney, then 23, had finished his degree and decided to make aliyah, emigrating to Israel to become a citizen
 But he hadn't moved for a good salary, or a partner. He didn't even have a job lined up
 He had left his comfortable Australian life to start a commune in an apartment. Mr Cohney is part of a new wave of mainly Jewish Australians rejuvenating Israel's collective living movement
 Except instead of living on a kibbutz surrounded by desert or forest, these communes are in bustling cities like Haifa
The enduring appeal of a collective lifestyle The kibbutz movement has been at the centre of Israeli society since the first one started in Palestine in 1910 by Jewish Europeans who were members of a socialist Zionist movement
 The kibbutzim (the Hebrew plural) were agricultural centres, in which members ate in communal dining halls and worked together
     According to the Kibbutz Industry Association (KIA), the "multi-generational, rural settlement" was characterised by its "collective and cooperative community lifestyle 
 and shared ownership of its means of production". They sprang up right across the country, originating with Kibbutz Deganya Aleph, along the Sea of Galilee in the centre of Israel
 The movement hit a roadblock in the 1980s under the strain of Israel's financial crisis
 Many lost members, while others became privatised to continue running. Today, there are still 270 kibbutzim in operation in Israel, but 72 per cent are privatised
 In their place, urban communes are emerging, attracting a new generation to the collective style of living
A Jewish life without theology Mr Cohney's introduction to life in Israel came during his gap year, when he learned leadership techniques and volunteering
 On his return to Australia, he joined the Socialist Zionist youth movement Habonim Dror
 The ideology behind the group focuses on Jewish people participating in building an equitable society in Israel with equal access to resources for all people
     For Mr Cohney, his move has allowed him to live a Jewish life that isn't based on theology
 Raised in the Orthodox tradition, he began to question the existence of God when he entered his late teens
 In Israel the religious festivals are the public holidays and people speak Hebrew in the street
 "It takes the onus off the individual to create that Jewish life for themselves," Mr Cohney says
Lessons from the kibbutz Michal Sagie Schildkraut, an Israeli living in Australia, knows first hand the pleasures and tensions of kibbutz life
 She grew up during the 1970s on a kibbutz, Givat Haim Ichud, between Tel Aviv and Haifa
 "It was one of the most beautiful places to grow up in, but it was growing up in an orphanage, basically," she says
 "There was a lot of children's freedom."     Ms Sagie Schildkraut was free to explore remote forested areas from the age of nine, without supervision
 Her kibbutz had a feature common to many kibbutzim of the time — children's houses
 While parents worked during the day, often starting early and for long hours, the children would live in their own quarters, spending three hours with their parents each evening
     She says while communal living is a wonderful idea, as the child of parents who chose such an arrangement, a socialist lifestyle has a finite timeframe
 "It had a really good vision, but when it's not you who chooses it and it's something you inherit, it changes," she says
 Ms Sagie Schildkraut has chosen not to live on a kibbutz as an adult because of the challenges of maintaining equality and putting the group first
 "If I studied at the expense of the kibbutz and my neighbour didn't, my salary and what I want is more, more, more," she says
 "The more generations that go through it [the kibbutz], the more the cause gets lost
"Rejecting individualism Three years since he started living communally, Mr Cohney says there are ups and downs to the lifestyle
 As anyone who has lived in a share house knows, collective living brings with it a certain level of tension
 When you combine that with shared finances and decision-making, the challenges are magnified
 However, Mr Cohney says the right sort of collectivism "enhances freedom, autonomy and lets people make big decisions about their life together
 Not serve a system".     He has a range of responsibilities including providing informal education for soldiers, picking mangoes and grapes and escorting refugees to official government appointments
 His group sees the benefit of enacting societal change on a group scale, which they are more likely to achieve when the stress of cost of living is taken out of the equation
 Mr Cohney is not beholden to a wage, which increases his sense of vocation. "I think about the fact that I'm serving Israeli society 
 I'm choosing [my work] based on what do I think is the need of Israeli society," he says
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