Yad Tabenkin – What we do 

To be a world center, both physically and digitally, for the treasures, physical and spiritual, of the kibbutz, of the youth movements and settlement in Israel and the world from the beginning of Zionism until the present. This will enable any interested person to find what they seek and base their practical or academic dreams on our collections and strive for a better society.

The Yad Tabenkin Archives provide a microcosm of the history of the Zionist movement and the settlement movement's contribution to the founding of the State of Israel, its development, of the ingathering of the exiles and the link between the diaspora and the Jewish homeland. 

Yad Tabenkin Archives has the largest collection of archival material from the different kibbutz movements, each with its own ideology, of economically and socially collective settlements in Eretz Yisrael and the State of Israel, which were gradually merged into one movement. Its holdings include archives of many early youth movements and political parties as well as a special section devoted to oral documentation by veteran kibbutz members. The subjects covered are public, security, educational and cultural activity. The archives also contain numerous personal archives, collections and special collections such as photographs, audio-visual materials, maps and drawings.

The Yad Tabenkin Archives provide a significant expression of pioneering and community life which typefied the pre-State Yishuv, with the kibbutz and pioneering movements and the Zionist pioneering youth movements in the Diaspora at its center. The devotion of the individual and the commitment to the community are the central motifs found in the archives and its collections. For example, formal and informal educational activity (schools, youth movements, Kibbutz teachers' training college); cultural life (music, theatre, dance, photography, literature); security (Haganah and Palmach); politics (Achdut HaAvodah – Poalei Zion, Left Poalei Zion); pioneering (Sdom-Dead Sea, ports, Tower and Stockade settlements); economic activity (industry and agriculture) and much more. 

These historic assets and cultural treasures, which express the connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel, are the legacy we pass to the contemporary youth and the generations to come, in Israel and the Diaspora, and serve to advance academic research. This task is entrusted to the staff of Yad Tabenkin.