Scholar writes that dog conflicts signal deeper issues in intentional communities

LAWRENCE — Sometimes Omri Senderowicz’s chapter in a new book about the problems of intentional communities — about the conflicts caused by dogs on Israeli kibbutzim — reads like a comic’s routine, for instance when he recounts one community meeting:

“Aaron exclaimed in frustration: ‘Dogs always (defecate) in the neighbor’s yard, never in the owner’s yard! Moshe’s dog never (defecates) in his yard, only in mine!’”

But the visiting assistant professor in the University of Kansas Jewish Studies Program says dog-driven conflicts reveal something serious about the problems inherent in kibbutzim, which are a particularly Israeli form of collective, egalitarian living.

In “Man’s Best Friend? Dogs and Social Conflict on the Israeli Kibbutz,” Senderowicz’s contribution to the third volume of “Conflicts and Conflict Management in Intentional Communities,” the author shows how conflicts surrounding dogs reflect a broader social anxiety about the “repulsive neighbor,” as well as the particular challenges of intentional communities like the kibbutz in regulating social relations without the use of sanctions.

Senderowicz, who grew up on a kibbutz, explains it thusly:

“The original idea was that, in a kibbutz — as opposed to the kind of alienated, violent, capitalist society outside — we behave ourselves because we care about other people and because we identify with the collective goals, not because we fear punishment or seek reward.”

This is why, for example, there were no fines when dog owners breached kibbutz decisions and no fences between family homes or plots of land on a kibbutz, he said, explaining some of the underlying factors that gave rise to emotion-driven conflicts over roaming animals and their excreta.

Senderowicz said that, in his research on kibbutzim, he kept coming across reports in their internal publications of conflicts over dogs.

“People constantly complain about it, fight about it, talk about it and so on. And so I let that lead me,” he said. “When I got invited to contribute to this book, I said, ‘Let's pull on that string and see what happens.’ And I actually found a lot of broader issues that were, in a funny way, enfolded within this small, minor issue.”

The KU researcher said, “It expressed that problem of how do you regulate social behavior within a society that wants to be very peaceful, very pacifistic and doesn't want to use any sanctions? So, ideally, the kibbutz would never call a dog catcher, take away or poison a straying dog. Just as you don't sue your neighbor, you don't call the police on a fellow kibbutz member — unless something very radical happens, which is rare.

“Correction should be done in a comradely way, through a kind of moral persuasion ... through peer pressure ... informally ... but it should never be through a direct form of sanctions.”

Senderowicz’s book chapter recounts a scandal in which a newcomer to a kibbutz called the regional dog catcher, thus violating these classical principles.

Conflicts over dogs continue to roil Israel’s 265 kibbutzim, Senderowicz said, even as 90% of them have largely transitioned from a truly communistic form of self-government to a much more capitalistic model.

“Conflicts and Conflict Management in Intentional Communities” is edited by Michal Palgi and Shlomo Getz.