title: Kibbutz

text: With time, the kibbutz members' sense of identification with the kibbutz and its goals decreased. This process originated from personal frustrations among the kibbutz members as a result of internal processes, from the growing stratification and inequality due to the growth of capitalistic practices, and a generation born and raised in the kibbutzim that did not necessarily inherit their parents’ fiery ideological and motivational drive to “settle the land”. Over the years, some kibbutz members established professional careers outside the kibbutz, accumulating power, privileges and prestige. The balance between individual values and values of the kibbutz began to tip, and work motivation was affected. An emphasis was placed on social compensation to encourage productivity. These processes occurred in parallel with a severe economic crisis (itself a sub-component of the Israeli economic crisis of the 1980s).


title: Kibbutz

text: During the 1980s, following the peak of the kibbutzim crisis, many people started leaving their kibbutzim, and there was considerable tension due to the economic situation. In order to cope with the situation, some kibbutzim began to change in various ways.


title: Kibbutz

text: Since the mid-1990s, the number of kibbutzim making significant changes in their lifestyle has continued to grow, while the resistance to these changes has gradually decreased, with only a few dozen kibbutzim still functioning under more traditional models. It is important to note, however, that each kibbutz has undergone different processes of change. There are many people, outside and inside the kibbutzim, who claim these changes bring the end of the kibbutz concept. Among the communities that have recently officially ceased being kibbutzim are Megiddo in the Jezreel Valley, HagGoshrim in the Upper Galilee, Beyt Nir in the Negev, etc.


title: Kibbutz

text: These processes have created the "renewing kibbutz" ()—a kibbutz settlement pattern not fully based on the original values of the kibbutz. Kibbutzim continuing under the original kibbutz values are associated with the "collaborative model" ().


title: Kibbutz

text: There are now three kibbutz compensation models. 1) The traditional collective "kibbutz/kibbutz shitufi", in which members are compensated equally, regardless of what work each member does; 2) the mixed model "kibbutz/kibbutz meshulav", in which each member is given a small percentage of his or their salary along with a basic component given equally to all kibbutz members; and 3) the renewing "kibbutz/kibbutz mithadesh", in which a member's income consists solely of their individual income from his work and sometimes includes income from other kibbutz sources.


title: Kibbutz

text: According to a survey conducted by the University of Haifa 188 of all kibbutzim (72%) are now converted to the "renewing kibbutz" model, which could be described as more individualistic kibbutz. Dr. Shlomo Getz, head of the Institute for the Research of the Kibbutz and the Cooperative Idea believes that by the end of 2012, there will be more kibbutzim switching to some alternative model.


title: Kibbutz

text: First Aliyah immigrants were largely religious, but those of the Second Aliyah were mainly secular. A Jewish work ethic thus replaced religious practice. Berl Katznelson, a Labor Zionist leader articulated this when he said "Everywhere the Jewish labourer goes, the divine presence goes with him."


title: Kibbutz

text: The first kibbutzim were founded in the upper Jordan Valley, the Jezreel Valley and the Sharon coastal plain. The land was available for purchase because it was marshy and malaria-infested. The Zionists believed that the Arab population would be grateful for the economic benefits that developing the land would bring. Their approach was that the enemies of the Arab peasants were the Arab landowners (called "effendis"), not fellow Jewish farmers. The first kibbutzniks hoped to be more than farmers. They sought to create a new type of society where all would be equal and free from exploitation.


title: Kibbutz

text: Kibbutz members were not classic Marxists though their system partially resembled Communism. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels both shared a disdain for conventional formulations of the nation state and Leninists were hostile to Zionism. Nevertheless, in the late 1930s, two kibbutz leaders, Tabenkin and Yaari, initially attracted to anarchist ideas, pushed their movements to reverence of Joseph Stalin's dictatorship and of Stalin whom many called Shemesh HaAmim ("The Sun of the Nations").


title: Kibbutz

text: The USSR voted at the UN for establishment of Israel. Stalin became hostile to Israel after it became apparent that Israel would not turn communist, so the USSR began serving diplomatic and military interests of various nations in the Arab world. This caused major crises and mass exit in both Kibbutz Meuchad and Kibbutz Artzi kibbutzim, especially after the 1952 Rudolf Slánský Prague show trials in which most of the accused and executed party functionaries were Jews and the 1953 Doctors' plot in Moscow of mostly Jews. Nonetheless many kibbutzim cancelled Purim celebrations when Stalin collapsed on March 1, 1953. Despite Communist atrocities and increasing state antisemitism in the USSR and its satellites many in the far left kibbutz movement, like Hashomer Hatzair (The Young Guard) viewed Stalin with awe and leader of the "peace camp". The party paper Al HaMishmar (On the Watch) presented this view.


title: Kibbutz

text: Kibbutzim were run as collective enterprises within Israel's partly free market system. Internally kibbutzim also practiced active democracy, with elections held for kibbutz functions and full participation in national elections in which the members generally voted along the lines of the kibbutz movement ideology. Jewish religious practices were banned or discouraged in many far left kibbutzim.


title: Kibbutz

text: Kibbutzim were not the only contemporary communal enterprises: pre-war Palestine also saw the development of communal villages called "moshavim". In a "moshav", marketing and major farm purchases were collective, but other aspects of life were private.


title: Kibbutz

text: The principle of equality was taken extremely seriously up until the 1970s. Kibbutzniks did not individually own tools, or even clothing. Gifts and income received from outside were turned over to the common treasury. If a member received a gift in services—like a visit to a relative or a trip abroad paid for by a parent—there could be arguments at members' meetings about the propriety of accepting such a gift. Up until recently, members ate meals together in the communal dining hall. This was seen as an important aspect of communal life.


title: Kibbutz

text: When the first children were born at the kibbutz there were inevitably some ethical dilemmas that needed to be solved. One of these was that the kibbutz was striving for equality, including the equality of the sexes. Women were only seen as separate because they gave birth to children, automatically tying them to the domestic sphere. In order to liberate women and promote gender equality, they could not be tied to solely domestic duties and child care giving. The Kibbutz wanted to give women the opportunity to continue their work in the agricultural sector and industrial sector. As such, "Communal education is the first step towards woman's liberation." Chayuta Bussel


title: Kibbutz

text: Along with gender equality, the issue of parenting under the communal way of life was a concern. The parental tendency is to view the child as a personal possession and to dominate them. The founding members of the kibbutz agreed that this was not conducive to community life. They also thought it was selfish of parents to want to control their children and that this did not give room for the child to grow as their own person.


title: Kibbutz

text: To solve these issues the founders created the communal children's houses, where the children would spend most of their time; learning, playing and sleeping. Parents spent three to four hours a day in the afternoon with their children after work and before dinner.


title: Kibbutz

text: Collective childrearing was also a way to escape the patriarchal society that the founders came from. Children would not be dependent on their fathers economically, socially, legally or otherwise and this would eliminate the father's authority and uproot the patriarchy.


title: Kibbutz

text: In the children's houses, trained nurses and teachers were the care givers. It was felt that relationships of the children and their parents would be better because parents would not have to be the sole disciplinarians. Children grew up in the community environment and grew up with children who were born in the same year as them. The financial responsibility of the children was shared by the community.


title: Kibbutz

text: The founders of the Kibbutz sought a dynamic education for their children, that can be summed up in this statement from the founders of Kibbutz Degania


title: Kibbutz

text: From formal education to knowledge acquired from life, From the book to the physical work. From a discipline based on blind obedience to a regime of activity and creation in an atmosphere of freedom.


title: Kibbutz

text: The adults in the community did their best to make the children's house into a children's home. They fully furnished them to accommodate every age group. "It is surrounded by a courtyard, well equipped for the growing child's needs, with flowers and bushes, hiding places, and playgrounds."


title: Kibbutz

text: Under Freud's influence, the importance of the early years of childhood development were understood by the Kibbutz and much emphasis was put on fostering the child's sense of individuality, creativity, and basic trust. In practice transmission of family traditions and views was replaced by indoctrination into kibbutz and kibbutz movement views and also resulted in much uniformity vs. individuality. Significantly, this method of child rearing was not only "collectivization" of children, but a near complete conscious break with a cornerstone of Jewish life: focus on family, especially the nuclear family.


title: Kibbutz

text: Although, for many of the original founders of the Kibbutz, the arrival of children was a sobering experience: "When we saw our first children in the playpen, hitting one another, or grabbing toys just for themselves, we were overcome with anxiety. What did it mean that even an education in communal life couldn't uproot these egotistical tendencies? The utopia of our initial social conception was slowly, slowly destroyed."


title: Kibbutz

text: From the 1920s until the 1970s, most kibbutzim had a system whereby the children would sleep in communal children's homes, called 'Beit Yeladim' (בית ילדים), instead of in their parents' apartments.


title: Kibbutz

text: Although the children were not raised directly by their parents, they knew who their parents were and formed close bonds with them. Throughout the morning, parents looked forward to the end of the work day when they could go to the children's house and pick up the children to play with them and dote on them.


title: Kibbutz

text: Children's societies were one of the features of kibbutz life that most interested outsiders. In the heyday of children's societies, parents would only spend two hours a day, typically in the afternoon, with their children. In Kibbutz Artzi parents were explicitly forbidden to put their children to bed at night. As children got older, parents could go for days on end without seeing their offspring, other than through chance encounters somewhere in the grounds.


title: Kibbutz

text: Some children who went through children's societies said they loved the experience, others remain ambivalent. One vocal group maintains that growing up without one's parents was very difficult. Years later, a kibbutz member described her childhood in a children's society:


title: Kibbutz

text: Allowed to suckle every four hours, left to cry and develop our lungs, we grew up without the basic security needed for survival. Sitting on the potty at regular intervals next to other children doing the same, we were educated to be the same; but we were, for all that, different... At night the grownups leave and turn off all the lights. You know you will wet the bed because it is too frightening to go to the lavatory.


title: Kibbutz

text: Examples of children raised under the Kibbutz system of equality are given by Yosef Criden. When an aunt from a nearby city comes to visit her niece or nephew and brings a box of chocolate as a present for them, the child will excitedly open it up and eat a few of the chocolates. Then the child will go over to the rest of the group and give the rest of the chocolates to their peers. This is the ideology instilled in the children, to value the self but also to always think about others. Another example Yosef gives is that when his son, who was born and raised on a kibbutz, went into the army, he and his fellow bunk mates asked their supervising officer for a box. They wanted to keep the box in the middle of the room and whenever they would get care packages, they would put the items into the box and share them communally. They did not want to be like most of the units of officers from towns and cities, where each officer would hide their packages under their beds.


title: Kibbutz

text: In a 1977 study, Fox compared the separation effects experienced by kibbutz children when removed from their mother, compared with removal from their caregiver (called a "metapelet" in Hebrew). He found that the child showed separation distress in both situations but, when reunited, children were significantly more attached to their mothers than to the "metapelet". The children protested subsequent separation from their mothers when the "metapelet" was reintroduced to them. However, kibbutzim children shared high bonding with their parents as compared to those who were sent to boarding schools, because children in a kibbutz spent three to four hours with their parents every day.


title: Kibbutz

text: In another study by Scharf, the group brought up in a communal environment within a kibbutz showed less ability in coping with imagined situations of separation than those who were brought up with their families. This has far reaching implications for child attachment adaptability and therefore institutions like kibbutzim. These interesting kibbutz techniques are controversial with or without these studies.


title: Kibbutz

text: A mixture of criticism and nostalgia by some 20 adults born in Kibbutzim in the 1930s was documented in the 2007 film "Children of the Sun". The film raised much controversy and brought about a flood of reactions in favor and against the practices of child raising in Kibbutzim in those early years of the Kibbutz. Interviews were interlaced with original footage.


title: Kibbutz

text: The organisation of child rearing within the kibbutzim was largely based around adult imperatives rather than what was best for the children; collective parenting was seen as a means of establishing gender equality between men and women. This was a common feature of many utopian communities.


title: Kibbutz

text: In the beginning, higher education was not valued as very important to the Kibbutz as most of the work was in agriculture. As the kibbutz changed and moved towards manufacturing and industry, more young people went to universities and colleges to pursue higher education. The total percentage of members studying at universities among kibbutz students rose from 38 percent in 1978 to 54 percent [in 1990]. Originally the Kibbutz paid college tuition in full, but in the 1980s with the kibbutz crisis, some began to pay a smaller share of tuition costs.


title: Kibbutz

text: The role of gender equality on the kibbutz is very complex and has gone through cycles since the founding of the first kibbutzim. Since there were many different kibbutzim, women had different experiences at each particular one. Some say that women were and are completely equal to men on the kibbutz while others insist there has always been inequality.


title: Kibbutz

text: In the early days of the movement, kibbutzim tended to be male-dominated with significantly more male members. Nevertheless, women performed many of the same tasks as men. Both men and women worked in the fields, performed guard duty, and heavy labor. However, mostly women filled the traditional female roles, such as cooking, sewing, and cleaning.


title: Kibbutz

text: In the first couple of decades there was no traditional marriage in the kibbutz. If a man and woman wanted to get married, they went to the housing office and requested a room together. Not having traditional marriage was seen as a way to dissolve the patriarchy and give women their own standing without depending on a man (economically or socially) and was also viewed as a positive thing for the community as a whole, as communal life was the main aspect of the kibbutz.


title: Kibbutz

text: When the first children were born at the kibbutz, the founders were worried that this would tie the women to domestic service. They thought that the only difference between a man and a woman was that women gave birth and thus were automatically tied to the children and domestic duties. The communal dining and laundry were already a part of the kibbutz from the start. Of course they were implemented for reasons of living communally, but also to emancipate women from these duties so they were free to work in other sectors. With the arrival of the children, it was decided that they would be raised communally and sleep communally to free women to work in other fields. The desire to liberate women from traditional maternal duties was an ideological underpinning of the children's society system. Women were "emancipated from the yoke of domestic service" in that their children were taken care of, and the laundry and cooking was done communally.


title: Kibbutz

text: Women born on kibbutzim were much less reluctant to perform traditional female roles. Eventually most women gravitated towards the service sector. The second generation of women who were born on the kibbutz eventually got rid of the children's houses and the Societies of Children. Most found that although they had a positive experience growing up in the children's house, wanted their own children at home with them.


title: Kibbutz

text: The documentary 'Full Circle' summarizes the change in the women's view of equality on the kibbutz. The original Utopian goal of the founders was complete gender equality. Children lived in the children's houses. Freed from domestic duties, women participated in the industrial, agricultural and economic sectors alongside men. However, in the 1960s, while the rest of the Western world demanded equality of the sexes and embraced feminism, the second generation of kibbutz born women began to return to more traditional gender roles. They rejected the ideal achieved by their grandparents and returned to domestic duties such as cooking, cleaning and taking care of children. Today, most women do not participate in the economic and industrial sectors of the kibbutz. They even embraced traditional marriage. Women often played a major part in this transition, often framing their arguments in terms of what they saw as the "natural needs" of womanhood and motherhood.


title: Kibbutz

text: Another example of the change in the original egalitarian nature of the kibbutz is that the founders of the kibbutz did not use the traditional Hebrew word for husband, "ba'al" (, BAH-al), because the word is otherwise used to mean "master" or "owner" and implies that the wife is submissive to her dominant spouse.


title: Kibbutz

text: Statistical data proves that the majority of women work in the service and domestic sectors while men work in the production sector. According to data from the 1940s, gender equality existed neither in the domain of work nor in the area of politics in the kibbutzim of the time. For instance, in 1948, in eight kibbutzim of the Ihud, a kibbutz federation with a pragmatic socialist orientation, 78.3 percent of the women worked in services (services for adults, child care, education) as compared with 16.7 percent of the men. That same year, 15.2 percent of the women worked in production as distinct from 58.2 percent of the men. The situation was the same in political life.


title: Kibbutz

text: By 1979, only 9 percent of the women were engaged in some type of farming activity. "[In 1979] only 12 percent of the female labor force is permanently assigned to productive branches, compared to 50 percent in 1920." Females comprise 84 percent of the service workers and the educational workers.


title: Kibbutz

text: Also, although there was a "masculinization of women" at one point, there was no corresponding "feminization" of men. Women may have worked the fields, but men did not work in childcare.


title: Kibbutz

text: Along with property and ideology, social lives were also held in common. As an example, most kibbutz dining halls exclusively utilized benches, not as an issue of cost or convenience, but because benches were construed as another way of expressing communal values. In the beginning, some kibbutzim husbands and wives were discouraged from sitting together, as marriage was an expressed form of exclusivity.


title: Kibbutz

text: In "The Kibbutz Community and Nation Building", Paula Rayman reports that Kibbutz Har refused to buy teakettles for its members in the 1950s; the issue being not the cost but that couples owning teakettles would mean more time spent together in their apartments, rather than with the community in the dining hall.


title: Kibbutz

text: In the beginning, members were not allowed individual items, like teakettles and everything was strictly communal. Starting around the 1950s and 1960s, people were entitled to individual property, like teakettles, books, radios etc. According to Criden and Gelb "The equality problem only becomes serious when there are gross deviations from basic principles". Having a few books was fine, but having a private car was unacceptable. Items like cars were communally owned and had to be requested in advance by members or used for work related duties.


title: Kibbutz

text: Communal life proved hard for some. Every kibbutz saw some new members quit after a few years. Since kibbutzniks had no individual bank accounts, any purchase not made at the kibbutz canteen had to be approved by a committee, a potentially humiliating and time-wasting experience.


title: Kibbutz

text: Kibbutzim also had their share of members who were not hard workers, or who abused common property; there would always be resentment against these "parasites". Although according to Criden and Gelb, the vast majority of people on kibbutzim are not free-loaders. They state that their chief weapon against free-loaders is public opinion. People who do not pull their own weight in the community are frowned upon and their opinions are not taken seriously by the community and they are not given any responsibility.


title: Kibbutz

text: Finally, kibbutzim, as small, isolated communities, tended to be places of gossip, exacerbated by lack of privacy and the regimented work and leisure schedules.


title: Kibbutz

text: Although major decisions about the future of the kibbutz were made by consensus or by voting, day-to-day decisions about where people would work were made by elected leaders. Typically, kibbutzniks would learn their assignments by consulting the duty sheet at the dining hall.


title: Kibbutz

text: Kibbutz memoirs from the Pioneer era report that kibbutz meetings varied from heated arguments to free-flowing philosophical discussions, whereas memoirs and accounts from kibbutz observers from the 1950s and 1960s report that kibbutz meetings were businesslike but poorly attended.


title: Kibbutz

text: Kibbutzim attempted to rotate people into different jobs. One week a person might work in planting, the next with livestock, the week after in the kibbutz factory and the following week in the laundry. Even managers would have to work in menial jobs. Through rotation, people took part in every kind of work, but it interfered with any process of specialization.


title: Kibbutz

text: Aversion to sex was not part of the kibbutz ideology; to this end, teenagers were not segregated at night in children's societies, yet many visitors to kibbutzim were astonished at how conservative the communities tended to be. In "Children of the Dream", Bruno Bettelheim quoted a kibbutz friend, "at a time when the American girls preen themselves, and try to show off as much as possible sexually, our girls cover themselves up and refuse to wear clothing that might show their breasts or in any other fashion be revealing."


title: Kibbutz

text: Kibbutz divorce rates were and are extremely low. Unfortunately from the point of view of the adults in the community, marriage rates among communally raised children were equally low. This conservatism on the part of kibbutz children has been attributed to the Westermarck effect—a form of reverse sexual imprinting whereby even unrelated children, if raised together from an early age, tend to reject each other as potential partners. The children who grew up together in the children's houses considered their peers brothers and sisters and had close lasting bonds with each other.


title: Kibbutz

text: From the beginning, kibbutzim had a reputation as culture-friendly and nurturing of the arts. Many kibbutzniks became writers, actors, or artists. Kibbutzim typically offer theatre companies, choirs, orchestras, athletic leagues, and special-interest classes. In 1953 Givat Brenner staged the play "My Glorious Brothers", about the Maccabee revolt, building a real village on a hilltop as a set, planting real trees, and performing for 40,000 people. Following kibbutz work practices of the time, all the actors were members of the kibbutz, and all performed as part of their work assignments.


title: Kibbutz

text: Although there have been sensational crimes on kibbutzim, overall the crime rate is lower than the national average by a significant margin.


title: Kibbutz

text: Three researchers who wrote about psychological life on kibbutzim were Melford E. Spiro (1958), Bruno Bettelheim (1969) and Michael Baizerman (1963). All concluded that a kibbutz upbringing led to individuals' having greater difficulty in making strong emotional commitments thereafter, such as falling in love or forming a lasting friendship. On the other hand, they appear to find it easier to have a large number of less-involved friendships, and a more active social life.


title: Kibbutz

text: Some researchers came to the conclusion that children growing up in these tightly knit communities tended to see the other children around them as ersatz siblings and preferred to seek mates outside the community when they reached maturity. Some theorize that living amongst one another on a daily basis virtually from birth on produced an extreme version of the Westermarck effect, which diminished teenage kibbutzniks' sexual attraction to one another. Partly as a result of not finding a mate from within the kibbutz, youth often abandon kibbutz life as adults.


title: Kibbutz

text: The era of independent Israel kibbutzim attracted interest from sociologists and psychologists who attempted to answer the question: What are the effects of life without private property? What are the effects of life being brought up apart from one's parents?


title: Kibbutz

text: Bettelheim suggested that the lack of private property was the cause of the lack of emotions in kibbutzniks. He wrote, "nowhere more than in the kibbutz did I realize the degree to which private property, in the deep layers of the mind, relates to private emotions. If one is absent, the other tends to be absent as well". (See primitivism and primitive communism for a general discussion of these concepts).


title: Kibbutz

text: In Kibbutz life, group pressure to conform is particularly strong. It is a subject of debate within the kibbutz movement as to how successful kibbutz education was in developing the talents of gifted children. Several kibbutz-raised children look back and say that the communal system stifled ambition; others say that bright children were nonetheless encouraged. Bruno Bettelheim had predicted that kibbutz education would yield mediocrity: "[kibbutz children] will not be leaders or philosophers, will not achieve anything in science or art." However, it has been noted that although kibbutzim comprise only 5% of the Israeli population, surprisingly large numbers of kibbutzniks become teachers, lawyers, doctors, and political leaders.


title: Kibbutz

text: In the 1990s, a journalist tracked down the children Bettelheim had interviewed back in the 1960s at "Kibbutz Atid" (now called Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan). The journalist found that the children were highly accomplished in academia, business, music, and the military. "Bettelheim got it totally wrong."


title: Kibbutz

text: Kibbutzim in the early days tried to be self-sufficient in all agricultural goods, from eggs to dairy to fruits to meats, but realized this was not possible. Land was generally provided by the Jewish National Fund. Later, they became dependent on government subsidies.


title: Kibbutz

text: Even before the establishment of the State of Israel, kibbutzim began to branch out from agriculture into manufacturing. Kibbutz Degania Alef opened a factory for diamond cutting tools that came to have a gross turnover of several US million dollars a year. Kibbutz Hatzerim has a factory for drip irrigation equipment. Netafim is a multinational corporation that grosses over US$300 million a year. Maagan Michael branched out from making bullets to making plastics and medical tools, and running an ulpan. These enterprises bring in over US$100 million a year. A great wave of kibbutz industrialization came in the 1960s, and only 15% of kibbutz members worked in agriculture.


title: Kibbutz

text: Hiring seasonal workers was always a point of controversy in the kibbutz movement. During harvest time, when hands were needed, labourers were sought outside the kibbutz. The founders of the kibbutz movement wanted to redeem the Jewish nation through manual labour, and hiring non-Jews to do hard tasks was not consistent with that idea. In the 1910s Kibbutz Degania vainly searched for Jewish masons to build their homes, but could not find Jewish stonemasons, and hired Arabs.


title: Kibbutz

text: In the 1970s kibbutzim frequently hired Arab labourers. From the 1990s, teams of foreign workers were brought in, many from Thailand and China.


title: Kibbutz

text: Kibbutzim have branched out into tourism, among them Kiryat Anavim, Lavi and Nahsholim. Many kibbutzim rent out homes or run guesthouses. Several kibbutzim, such as Kibbutz Lotan and Kfar Ruppin, operate bird-watching vacations and eco tours. These tours showcase their development of sustainable technologies such as mud huts and compostable toilets.


title: Kibbutz

text: Today, some Kibbutzim operate major industrial ventures. For example, in 2010, Kibbutz Sasa, containing some 200 members, generated US$850 million in annual revenue from its military-plastics industry. Kibbutz Ketura is leading Israel's development of solar technology, becoming a popular eco tourism attraction.


title: Kibbutz

text: Many kibbutzim were initially established by Nahal groups affiliated with Israeli youth movements, among them HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed, Hashomer Hatzair and HaMachanot HaOlim.


title: Kibbutz

text: Following many changes the kibbutzim went through during the years and following the appeal made to Israeli High Court of Justice by the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow Coalition in 2001 in which the state was required to redefine the exact definition of a kibbutz in order to define the rightful benefits the kibbutzim members should be granted by law. The reactivated legal definition was given to the Industry, Trade and Labour Minister of Israel on the December 15, 2005 (תקנות סיווג הקיבוצים). According to this classification there are three types of kibbutzim:


title: Kibbutz

text: Some kibbutzim have been involved in legal actions related to their status as kibbutzim. Kibbutz Glil Yam, near Herzliya, petitioned the court regarding privatisation. In 1999, eight members of kibbutz Beit Oren applied to the High Court of Justice to order the registrar of cooperative societies to declassify Beit Oren as a kibbutz and reclassify it as a different kind of cooperative society. The petitioners argued that the Kibbutz had dramatically changed its life style, having implemented differential salaries, closing the communal dining hall, and privatising the educational system and other services. These changes did not fit the legal definition of a kibbutz, and in particular, the principle of equality in consumption. Consequently, the registrar of cooperative societies, who has the authority to register and classify cooperative societies, should change the classification of kibbutz Beit Oren. The kibbutz responded that it still maintained the basic principles of a kibbutz, but the changes made were vital to prevent a financial collapse and to improve the economic situation.


title: Kibbutz

text: This case resulted in the Government establishing the "Ben-Rafael Committee" chaired by Tel Aviv University professor Eliezer Ben-Rafael to recommend a new legal definitions that will suit the development of the kibbutz, and to submit an opinion on the allocation of apartments to kibbutz members. The committee submitted a detailed report with two new legal classifications to the settlements known today as kibbutzim. The first classification was named 'communal kibbutz', identical to the traditional definition of a kibbutz. The second classification was called the 'renewing kibbutz' and included developments and changes in lifestyle, provided that the basic principles of mutual guarantee and equality are preserved. In light of the above, the committee recommended that instead of the current legal definition of kibbutz, two different determinations will be created, as follows.


title: Kibbutz

text: The "Kibbutz Buchenwald" is an experience of resilience, self-management and agricultural training, after the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald in the spring of 1945. A group of sixteen young surviving men, initially, organized and formed the "Kibbutz Buchenwald", the first agricultural collective of post-war Germany, in the barracks of the camp, then renamed "Buchenwald displaced persons camp" to prepare the Jews for emigration to Palestine. This place operated for several years and welcomed many members. After the creation of the State of Israel, they founded their own community there in 1948 which was also called initially "Kibbutz Buchenwald" then "Netzer", then finally Netzer Sereni.


title: Kibbutz

text: From 1933 to 1935, the village of Jugeals-Nazareth hosted , the only Jewish kibbutz in France. An agricultural building was rented by an emissary from Baron Robert de Rothschild to open a farm-school for young French Jews, before their departure for Palestine, conquered by the British in December 1917 with the arrival in Jerusalem in particular of General Edmund Allenby and which was then placed by decision of the League of Nations in 1920 as a mandatory territory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Jewish refugees join Makhar, mostly Germans, but also Poles, Lithuanians, Russians, Hungarians, Dutch or Czechs and even Americans. About 500 to 800 kibbutznikim thus cultivated . The rise of anti-Semitism in France and the xenophobic actions of the sub-prefect , however, eventually forced the closure of Makhar. Most of the residents then left for Ayelet HaShahar.


title: Kibbutz

text: From 1960 to 1963, a Jansenist Catholic kibbutz, inspired by the kibbutzim of Israel, was created by Vincent Thibout, a member of in Pardailhan. He then created a new Christian community, still based on the kibbutz model and self-determined as such, in Malrevers.


title: Kibbutz

text: In his history of Palestine under the British Mandate, "One Palestine, Complete", "New Historian" Tom Segev wrote of the kibbutz movement:


title: Kibbutz

text: As against this characterization, numerous students found kibbutzim played a major role in agricultural innovation that advanced the Israeli agriculture to leading the world in some sectors, for instance irrigation. In later era many of their factories led Israeli efforts to gain economic independence by production for export, while their political involvement was of major importance up to 1948. The Kibbutz Meuchad and Kibbutz Artzi menaced Ben-Gurion's dominance of Yishuv politics in the 1940s, but they failed gaining wide public support in Israeli elections ever since 1949 because of reverence of Stalin's dictatorship, which most Israelis denounced. Kibbutzim have been criticized for falling short of living up to their own ideals. Most kibbutzim are not self-sufficient and have to employ non-kibbutz members as farm workers (or later factory workers). What was particularly controversial was the employment of Arab labourers while excluding them from the possibility of joining the Kibbutz as full members.


title: Kibbutz

text: Some kibbutzim have been criticized for "abandoning" socialist principles and turning to capitalist projects in order to make the kibbutz more self-sufficient economically. Kibbutz Shamir owns an optical products company that is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Numerous kibbutzim have moved away from farming and developed parts of their property for commercial and industrial purposes, building shopping malls and factories on kibbutz land that serve and employ non kibbutz members while the kibbutz retains a profit from land rentals or sales. Conversely, kibbutzim that have not engaged in this sort of development have also been criticized for becoming dependent on state subsidies to survive.


title: Kibbutz

text: Nonetheless, kibbutzniks played a role in yishuv society and then Israeli society, far out of proportion to their population, and many kibbutzniks have served Israel in positions of leadership. The invention of the Tower and Stockade system by which 52 settlements from 1938 to 1947 largely decided the borders of Israel in the UN 29 November 1947 decision, is attributed to kibbutz member Shlomo Gur.


title: Kibbutz

text: The establishment of the Palmach underground army in 1942, which won the yishuv crucial military struggle against Palestinian Arabs from 30 November 1947 up to 15 May 1948 that made possible the establishment of the Israeli state, was due to efforts by Tabenkin and other Kibbutz Meuchad leaders. One of them, Yigal Allon and Kibbutz Artzi member Shimon Avidan were the two most important commanders who won the 1948 war, and numerous kibbutz members were Cabinet Ministers who largely shaped Israeli politics from 1955 to 1977. Kibbutz-born Ehud Barak was Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001, and David Ben-Gurion lived most of his life in Tel Aviv, but joined Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev after resigning as Prime Minister in 1953. He remained a member after his return to office in 1955.


title: Kibbutz

text: Kibbutzim also contributed greatly to the growing Hebrew culture movement. The poet Rachel rhapsodized on the landscape from viewpoints from various Galilee kibbutzim in the 1920s and 1930s. The kibbutz dream of "making the desert bloom" became part of the Israeli dream as well.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, hence his common sobriquet, "Dean Swift".


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Swift is remembered for works such as "A Tale of a Tub" (1704), "An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity" (1712), "Gulliver's Travels" (1726), and "A Modest Proposal" (1729). He is regarded by the "Encyclopædia Britannica" as the foremost prose satirist in the English language, and is less well known for his poetry. He originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M. B. Drapier—or anonymously. He was a master of two styles of satire, the Horatian and Juvenalian styles.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: His deadpan, ironic writing style, particularly in "A Modest Proposal", has led to such satire being subsequently termed "Swiftian".


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Jonathan Swift was born on 30 November 1667 in Dublin in the Kingdom of Ireland. He was the second child and only son of Jonathan Swift (1640–1667) and his wife Abigail Erick (or Herrick) of Frisby on the Wreake. His father was a native of Goodrich, Herefordshire, but he accompanied his brothers to Ireland to seek their fortunes in law after their Royalist father's estate was brought to ruin during the English Civil War. His maternal grandfather, James Ericke, was the vicar of Thornton in Leicestershire. In 1634 the vicar was convicted of Puritan practices. Some time thereafter, Ericke and his family, including his young daughter Abigail, fled to Ireland.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Swift's father joined his elder brother, Godwin, in the practice of law in Ireland. He died in Dublin about seven months before his namesake was born. He died of syphilis, which he said he got from dirty sheets when out of town.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: At the age of one, child Jonathan was taken by his wet nurse to her hometown of Whitehaven, Cumberland, England. He said that there he learned to read the Bible. His nurse returned him to his mother, still in Ireland, when he was three.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: His mother returned to England after his birth, leaving him in the care of his uncle Godwin Swift (1628–1695), a close friend and confidant of Sir John Temple, whose son later employed Swift as his secretary.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Swift's family had several interesting literary connections. His grandmother Elizabeth (Dryden) Swift was the niece of Sir Erasmus Dryden, grandfather of poet John Dryden. The same grandmother's aunt Katherine (Throckmorton) Dryden was a first cousin of Elizabeth, wife of Sir Walter Raleigh. His great-great-grandmother Margaret (Godwin) Swift was the sister of Francis Godwin, author of "The Man in the Moone" which influenced parts of Swift's "Gulliver's Travels". His uncle Thomas Swift married a daughter of poet and playwright Sir William Davenant, a godson of William Shakespeare.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Swift's benefactor and uncle Godwin Swift took primary responsibility for the young man, sending him with one of his cousins to Kilkenny College (also attended by philosopher George Berkeley). He arrived there at the age of six, where he was expected to have already learned the basic declensions in Latin. He had not, and thus began his schooling in a lower form. Swift graduated in 1682, when he was 15.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: He attended Trinity College Dublin, the sole constituent college of the University of Dublin, in 1682, financed by Godwin's son Willoughby. The four-year course followed a curriculum largely set in the Middle Ages for the priesthood. The lectures were dominated by Aristotelian logic and philosophy. The basic skill taught the students was debate, and they were expected to be able to argue both sides of any argument or topic. Swift was an above-average student but not exceptional, and received his B.A. in 1686 "by special grace."


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Swift was studying for his master's degree when political troubles in Ireland surrounding the Glorious Revolution forced him to leave for England in 1688, where his mother helped him get a position as secretary and personal assistant of Sir William Temple at Moor Park, Farnham. Temple was an English diplomat who arranged the Triple Alliance of 1668. He had retired from public service to his country estate, to tend his gardens and write his memoirs. Gaining his employer's confidence, Swift "was often trusted with matters of great importance". Within three years of their acquaintance, Temple had introduced his secretary to William III and sent him to London to urge the King to consent to a bill for triennial Parliaments.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Swift took up his residence at Moor Park where he met Esther Johnson, then eight years old, the daughter of an impoverished widow who acted as companion to Temple's sister Lady Giffard. Swift was her tutor and mentor, giving her the nickname "Stella", and the two maintained a close but ambiguous relationship for the rest of Esther's life.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: In 1690, Swift left Temple for Ireland because of his health, but returned to Moor Park the following year. The illness consisted of fits of vertigo or giddiness, now believed to be Ménière's disease, and it continued to plague him throughout his life. During this second stay with Temple, Swift received his M.A. from Hart Hall, Oxford, in 1692. He then left Moor Park, apparently despairing of gaining a better position through Temple's patronage, in order to become an ordained priest in the Established Church of Ireland. He was appointed to the prebend of Kilroot in the Diocese of Connor in 1694, with his parish located at Kilroot, near Carrickfergus in County Antrim.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Swift appears to have been miserable in his new position, being isolated in a small, remote community far from the centres of power and influence. While at Kilroot, however, he may well have become romantically involved with Jane Waring, whom he called "Varina", the sister of an old college friend. A letter from him survives, offering to remain if she would marry him and promising to leave and never return to Ireland if she refused. She presumably refused, because Swift left his post and returned to England and Temple's service at Moor Park in 1696, and he remained there until Temple's death. There he was employed in helping to prepare Temple's memoirs and correspondence for publication. During this time, Swift wrote "The Battle of the Books", a satire responding to critics of Temple's "Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning" (1690), though "Battle" was not published until 1704.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Temple died on 27 January 1699. Swift, normally a harsh judge of human nature, said that all that was good and amiable in mankind had died with Temple. He stayed on briefly in England to complete editing Temple's memoirs, and perhaps in the hope that recognition of his work might earn him a suitable position in England. Unfortunately, his work made enemies among some of Temple's family and friends, in particular Temple's formidable sister Lady Giffard, who objected to indiscretions included in the memoirs. Swift's next move was to approach King William directly, based on his imagined connection through Temple and a belief that he had been promised a position. This failed so miserably that he accepted the lesser post of secretary and chaplain to the Earl of Berkeley, one of the Lords Justice of Ireland. However, when he reached Ireland, he found that the secretaryship had already been given to another. He soon obtained the living of Laracor, Agher, and Rathbeggan, and the prebend of Dunlavin in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Swift ministered to a congregation of about 15 at Laracor, which was just over four and half miles (7.5 km) from Summerhill, County Meath, and from Dublin. He had abundant leisure for cultivating his garden, making a canal after the Dutch fashion of Moor Park, planting willows, and rebuilding the vicarage. As chaplain to Lord Berkeley, he spent much of his time in Dublin and travelled to London frequently over the next ten years. In 1701, he anonymously published the political pamphlet "A Discourse on the Contests and Dissentions in Athens and Rome".


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Swift had residence in Trim, County Meath, after 1700. He wrote many of his works during this time period. In February 1702, Swift received his Doctor of Divinity degree from Trinity College Dublin. That spring he travelled to England and then returned to Ireland in October, accompanied by Esther Johnson—now 20—and his friend Rebecca Dingley, another member of William Temple's household. There is a great mystery and controversy over Swift's relationship with Esther Johnson, nicknamed "Stella". Many, notably his close friend Thomas Sheridan, believed that they were secretly married in 1716; others, like Swift's housekeeper Mrs Brent and Rebecca Dingley (who lived with Stella all through her years in Ireland), dismissed the story as absurd. Swift certainly did not wish her to marry anyone else: in 1704, when their mutual friend William Tisdall informed Swift that he intended to propose to Stella, Swift wrote to him to dissuade him from the idea. Although the tone of the letter was courteous, Swift privately expressed his disgust for Tisdall as an "interloper", and they were estranged for many years.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: During his visits to England in these years, Swift published "A Tale of a Tub" and "The Battle of the Books" (1704) and began to gain a reputation as a writer. This led to close, lifelong friendships with Alexander Pope, John Gay, and John Arbuthnot, forming the core of the Martinus Scriblerus Club (founded in 1713).


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Swift became increasingly active politically in these years. Swift supported the Glorious Revolution and early in his life belonged to the Whigs. As a member of the Anglican Church, he feared a return of the Catholic monarchy and "Papist" absolutism. From 1707 to 1709 and again in 1710, Swift was in London unsuccessfully urging upon the Whig administration of Lord Godolphin the claims of the Irish clergy to the First-Fruits and Twentieths ("Queen Anne's Bounty"), which brought in about £2,500 a year, already granted to their brethren in England. He found the opposition Tory leadership more sympathetic to his cause, and, when they came to power in 1710, he was recruited to support their cause as editor of "The Examiner". In 1711, Swift published the political pamphlet "The Conduct of the Allies", attacking the Whig government for its inability to end the prolonged war with France. The incoming Tory government conducted secret (and illegal) negotiations with France, resulting in the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) ending the War of the Spanish Succession.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Swift was part of the inner circle of the Tory government, and often acted as mediator between Henry St John (Viscount Bolingbroke), the secretary of state for foreign affairs (1710–15), and Robert Harley (Earl of Oxford), lord treasurer and prime minister (1711–14). Swift recorded his experiences and thoughts during this difficult time in a long series of letters to Esther Johnson, collected and published after his death as "A Journal to Stella". The animosity between the two Tory leaders eventually led to the dismissal of Harley in 1714. With the death of Queen Anne and accession of George I that year, the Whigs returned to power, and the Tory leaders were tried for treason for conducting secret negotiations with France.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Swift has been described by scholars as "a Whig in politics and Tory in religion" and Swift related his own views in similar terms, stating that as "a lover of liberty, I found myself to be what they called a Whig in politics ... But, as to religion, I confessed myself to be an High-Churchman." In his "Thoughts on Religion", fearing the intense partisan strife waged over religious belief in seventeenth-century England, Swift wrote that "Every man, as a member of the commonwealth, ought to be content with the possession of his own opinion in private." However, it should be borne in mind that, during Swift's time period, terms like "Whig" and "Tory" both encompassed a wide array of opinions and factions, and neither term aligns with a modern political party or modern political alignments.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Also during these years in London, Swift became acquainted with the Vanhomrigh family (Dutch merchants who had settled in Ireland, then moved to London) and became involved with one of the daughters, Esther. Swift furnished Esther with the nickname "Vanessa" (derived by adding "Essa", a pet form of Esther, to the "Van" of her surname, Vanhomrigh), and she features as one of the main characters in his poem "Cadenus and Vanessa". The poem and their correspondence suggest that Esther was infatuated with Swift, and that he may have reciprocated her affections, only to regret this and then try to break off the relationship. Esther followed Swift to Ireland in 1714, and settled at her old family home, Celbridge Abbey. Their uneasy relationship continued for some years; then there appears to have been a confrontation, possibly involving Esther Johnson. Esther Vanhomrigh died in 1723 at the age of 35, having destroyed the will she had made in Swift's favour. Another lady with whom he had a close but less intense relationship was Anne Long, a toast of the Kit-Cat Club.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Before the fall of the Tory government, Swift hoped that his services would be rewarded with a church appointment in England. However, Queen Anne appeared to have taken a dislike to Swift and thwarted these efforts. Her dislike has been attributed to "A Tale of a Tub", which she thought blasphemous, compounded by "The Windsor Prophecy", where Swift, with a surprising lack of tact, advised the Queen on which of her bedchamber ladies she should and should not trust. The best position his friends could secure for him was the Deanery of St Patrick's; this was not in the Queen's gift, and Anne, who could be a bitter enemy, made it clear that Swift would not have received the preferment if she could have prevented it. With the return of the Whigs, Swift's best move was to leave England and he returned to Ireland in disappointment, a virtual exile, to live "like a rat in a hole".


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Once in Ireland, however, Swift began to turn his pamphleteering skills in support of Irish causes, producing some of his most memorable works: "Proposal for Universal Use of Irish Manufacture" (1720), "Drapier's Letters" (1724), and "A Modest Proposal" (1729), earning him the status of an Irish patriot. This new role was unwelcome to the Government, which made clumsy attempts to silence him. His printer, Edward Waters, was convicted of seditious libel in 1720, but four years later a grand jury refused to find that the "Drapier's Letters" (which, though written under a pseudonym, were universally known to be Swift's work) were seditious. Swift responded with an attack on the Irish judiciary almost unparalleled in its ferocity, his principal target being the "vile and profligate villain" William Whitshed, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Also during these years, he began writing his masterpiece, "Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts, by Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, and then a captain of several ships", better known as "Gulliver's Travels". Much of the material reflects his political experiences of the preceding decade. For instance, the episode in which the giant Gulliver puts out the Lilliputian palace fire by urinating on it can be seen as a metaphor for the Tories' illegal peace treaty; having done a good thing in an unfortunate manner. In 1726 he paid a long-deferred visit to London, taking with him the manuscript of "Gulliver's Travels". During his visit, he stayed with his old friends Alexander Pope, John Arbuthnot and John Gay, who helped him arrange for the anonymous publication of his book. First published in November 1726, it was an immediate hit, with a total of three printings that year and another in early 1727. French, German, and Dutch translations appeared in 1727, and pirated copies were printed in Ireland.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Swift returned to England one more time in 1727, and stayed once again with Alexander Pope. The visit was cut short when Swift received word that Esther Johnson was dying, and rushed back home to be with her. On 28 January 1728, Johnson died; Swift had prayed at her bedside, even composing prayers for her comfort. Swift could not bear to be present at the end, but on the night of her death he began to write his "The Death of Mrs Johnson". He was too ill to attend the funeral at St Patrick's. Many years later, a lock of hair, assumed to be Johnson's, was found in his desk, wrapped in a paper bearing the words, "Only a woman's hair".


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Death became a frequent feature of Swift's life from this point. In 1731 he wrote "Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift", his own obituary, published in 1739. In 1732, his good friend and collaborator John Gay died. In 1735, John Arbuthnot, another friend from his days in London, died. In 1738 Swift began to show signs of illness, and in 1742 he may have suffered a stroke, losing the ability to speak and realising his worst fears of becoming mentally disabled. ("I shall be like that tree", he once said, "I shall die at the top.") He became increasingly quarrelsome, and long-standing friendships, like that with Thomas Sheridan, ended without sufficient cause. To protect him from unscrupulous hangers-on, who had begun to prey on the great man, his closest companions had him declared of "unsound mind and memory". However, it was long believed by many that Swift was actually insane at this point. In his book "Literature and Western Man", author J. B. Priestley even cites the final chapters of "Gulliver's Travels" as proof of Swift's approaching "insanity". Bewley attributes his decline to 'terminal dementia'.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: In part VIII of his series, "The Story of Civilization", Will Durant describes the final years of Swift's life as such:


title: Jonathan Swift

text: "Definite symptoms of madness appeared in 1738. In 1741, guardians were appointed to take care of his affairs and watch lest in his outbursts of violence he should do himself harm. In 1742, he suffered great pain from the inflammation of his left eye, which swelled to the size of an egg; five attendants had to restrain him from tearing out his eye. He went a whole year without uttering a word."


title: Jonathan Swift

text: In 1744, Alexander Pope died. Then on 19 October 1745, Swift, at nearly 80, died. After being laid out in public view for the people of Dublin to pay their last respects, he was buried in his own cathedral by Esther Johnson's side, in accordance with his wishes. The bulk of his fortune (£12,000) was left to found a hospital for the mentally ill, originally known as St Patrick's Hospital for Imbeciles, which opened in 1757, and which still exists as a psychiatric hospital.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Michael Foot, the late British politician and leader of the Labour Party, was a great admirer of Swift and wrote about him extensively. In "Debts of Honour" he cites with approbation a theory propounded by Denis Johnston that offers an explanation of Swift’s behavior towards Stella and Vanessa.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Pointing to contradictions in the received information about Swift’s origins and parentage, Johnston postulates that Swift’s real father was Sir William Temple's father, Sir John Temple who was Master of the Rolls in Dublin at the time. It is widely thought that Stella was Sir William Temple’s illegitimate daughter. So Swift was Sir William’s brother and Stella’s uncle. Marriage or close relations between Swift and Stella would therefore have been incest, an unthinkable prospect.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: It follows that Swift could not have married Vanessa either without Stella appearing to be a cast-off mistress, which he would not contemplate. Johnston’s theory is expounded fully in his book "In Search of Swift". He is also cited in the "Dictionary of Irish Biography" and the theory is presented without attribution in the "Concise Cambridge History of English Literature".


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Swift was a prolific writer, notable for his satires. The most recent collection of his prose works (Herbert Davis, ed. Basil Blackwell, 1965–) comprises fourteen volumes. A recent edition of his complete poetry (Pat Rodges, ed. Penguin, 1983) is 953 pages long. One edition of his correspondence (David Woolley, ed. P. Lang, 1999) fills three volumes.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Swift's first major prose work, "A Tale of a Tub", demonstrates many of the themes and stylistic techniques he would employ in his later work. It is at once wildly playful and funny while being pointed and harshly critical of its targets. In its main thread, the "Tale" recounts the exploits of three sons, representing the main threads of Christianity, who receive a bequest from their father of a coat each, with the added instructions to make no alterations whatsoever. However, the sons soon find that their coats have fallen out of current fashion, and begin to look for loopholes in their father's will that will let them make the needed alterations. As each finds his own means of getting around their father's admonition, they struggle with each other for power and dominance. Inserted into this story, in alternating chapters, the narrator includes a series of whimsical "digressions" on various subjects.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: In 1690, Sir William Temple, Swift's patron, published "An Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning" a defence of classical writing (see Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns), holding up the "Epistles of Phalaris" as an example. William Wotton responded to Temple with "Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning" (1694), showing that the "Epistles" were a later forgery. A response by the supporters of the Ancients was then made by Charles Boyle (later the 4th Earl of Orrery and father of Swift's first biographer). A further retort on the Modern side came from Richard Bentley, one of the pre-eminent scholars of the day, in his essay "Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris" (1699). The final words on the topic belong to Swift in his "Battle of the Books" (1697, published 1704) in which he makes a humorous defence on behalf of Temple and the cause of the Ancients.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: In 1708, a cobbler named John Partridge published a popular almanac of astrological predictions. Because Partridge falsely determined the deaths of several church officials, Swift attacked Partridge in "Predictions for the Ensuing Year" by Isaac Bickerstaff, a parody predicting that Partridge would die on 29 March. Swift followed up with a pamphlet issued on 30 March claiming that Partridge had in fact died, which was widely believed despite Partridge's statements to the contrary. According to other sources, Richard Steele used the persona of Isaac Bickerstaff, and was the one who wrote about the "death" of John Partridge and published it in "The Spectator", not Jonathan Swift.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: The "Drapier's Letters" (1724) was a series of pamphlets against the monopoly granted by the English government to William Wood to mint copper coinage for Ireland. It was widely believed that Wood would need to flood Ireland with debased coinage in order to make a profit. In these "letters" Swift posed as a shopkeeper—a draper—to criticise the plan. Swift's writing was so effective in undermining opinion in the project that a reward was offered by the government to anyone disclosing the true identity of the author. Though hardly a secret (on returning to Dublin after one of his trips to England, Swift was greeted with a banner, "Welcome Home, Drapier") no one turned Swift in, although there was an unsuccessful attempt to prosecute the publisher John Harding. Thanks to the general outcry against the coinage, Wood's patent was rescinded in September 1725 and the coins were kept out of circulation. In "Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift" (1739) Swift recalled this as one of his best achievements.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: "Gulliver's Travels", a large portion of which Swift wrote at Woodbrook House in County Laois, was published in 1726. It is regarded as his masterpiece. As with his other writings, the "Travels" was published under a pseudonym, the fictional Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's surgeon and later a sea captain. Some of the correspondence between printer Benj. Motte and Gulliver's also-fictional cousin negotiating the book's publication has survived. Though it has often been mistakenly thought of and published in bowdlerised form as a children's book, it is a great and sophisticated satire of human nature based on Swift's experience of his times. "Gulliver's Travels" is an anatomy of human nature, a sardonic looking-glass, often criticised for its apparent misanthropy. It asks its readers to refute it, to deny that it has adequately characterised human nature and society. Each of the four books—recounting four voyages to mostly fictional exotic lands—has a different theme, but all are attempts to deflate human pride. Critics hail the work as a satiric reflection on the shortcomings of Enlightenment thought.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: In 1729, Swift's "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick" was published in Dublin by Sarah Harding. It is a satire in which the narrator, with intentionally grotesque arguments, recommends that Ireland's poor escape their poverty by selling their children as food to the rich: "I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food ..." Following the satirical form, he introduces the reforms he is actually suggesting by deriding them:


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients ... taxing our absentees ... using [nothing] except what is of our own growth and manufacture ... rejecting ... foreign luxury ... introducing a vein of parsimony, prudence and temperance ... learning to love our country ... quitting our animosities and factions ... teaching landlords to have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants. ... Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, till he hath at least some glympse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: John Ruskin named him as one of the three people in history who were the most influential for him. George Orwell named him as one of the writers he most admired, despite disagreeing with him on almost every moral and political issue. Modernist poet Edith Sitwell wrote a fictional biography of Swift, titled "I Live Under a Black Sun" and published in 1937.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Literary scholar Frank Stier Goodwin wrote a full biography of Swift: "Jonathan Swift - Giant in Chains", issued by Liveright Publishing Corporation , New York (1940, 450pp, with Bibliography).


title: Jonathan Swift

text: In 1982, Soviet playwright Grigory Gorin wrote a theatrical fantasy called "The House That Swift Built" based on the last years of Jonathan Swift's life and episodes of his works. The play was filmed by director Mark Zakharov in the 1984 two-part television movie of the same name. Jake Arnott features him in his 2017 novel "The Fatal Tree". A 2017 analysis of library holdings data revealed that Swift is the most popular Irish author, and that "Gulliver’s Travels" is the most widely held work of Irish literature in libraries globally.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: The first woman to write a biography of Swift was Sophie Shilleto Smith, who published "Dean Swift" in 1910.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: Swift crater, a crater on Mars's moon Deimos, is named after Jonathan Swift, who predicted the existence of the moons of Mars.


title: Jonathan Swift

text: In honour of Swift's long-time residence in Trim, there are several monuments in the town marking his legacy. Most notable is Swift's Street, named after him. Trim also holds a recurring festival in honour of Swift, called the 'Trim Swift Festival'.


title: Terry Farrell (actress)

text: Theresa Lee Farrell (born November 19, 1963) is an American actress and fashion model. She is best known for her roles as Jadzia Dax in the television series "" and as Regina "Reggie" Kostas in the comedy series "Becker".


title: Terry Farrell (actress)

text: In her junior year of high school, the almost six-foot-tall Farrell submitted her image to the Elite modeling agency in New York City. Shortly after, at the age of 16, she was invited to New York City and, within two days of arriving, had an exclusive contract with "Mademoiselle". She went on to appear on the covers of the Italian and German editions of "Vogue", and was also featured in numerous editorials for American "Vogue".


title: Terry Farrell (actress)

text: After 18 months of modeling, she studied acting while still modeling on the side. Her first major roles were in the short-lived 1984 television series "Paper Dolls", playing a model, and in the feature film "Back to School" (in her film debut) with Rodney Dangerfield, playing love interest to Keith Gordon’s character. In 1986, Farrell appeared in an episode of "The Twilight Zone."


title: Terry Farrell (actress)

text: In 1989, she began studying acting with Stella Adler and appeared in a number of guest-starring roles in series, including "Quantum Leap" and "The Cosby Show". In 1992, she played Cat in a second pilot for a U.S. version of "Red Dwarf", which was not picked up.


title: Terry Farrell (actress)

text: Soon after the "Red Dwarf USA" project folded, she was offered a lead role in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine". Farrell starred as Jadzia Dax, the space station's Starfleet science officer, a character from an alien species known as the Trill, who is host to a 300-year-old symbiont, and can draw upon the memories and knowledge of the symbiont's seven previous hosts. The series debuted in January 1993. When she left the show at the end of the sixth season, Paramount killed off Farrell's "host" character (though continuing the "symbiont" character in a new Dax host, played by Nicole DeBoer).


title: Terry Farrell (actress)

text: Farrell then co-starred on Paramount's television comedy series "Becker". She played Regina "Reggie" Kostas, foil and love interest to Ted Danson's John Becker, for four years and 94 episodes, before her character was written out of the show. Farrell told the "Tampa Bay Times" that she was fired from the show just after the season-four cliffhanger finale aired. She told the paper that she was completely surprised by the firing.


title: Terry Farrell (actress)

text: Farrell also provided the voice of Six of One in the animated short film "Tripping the Rift", which eventually became a Sci-Fi Channel TV series with other actors providing the voice of Six. First released independently on the Internet, "Tripping the Rift" originally featured Patricia Beckmann as the voice of Six and was replaced by Farrell's voice for an episode of the Sci-Fi Channel's short film series "Exposure", in which Farrell was guest host. Farrell's version of Six was heard only once on television.


title: Terry Farrell (actress)

text: Farrell retired in 2002 after marrying actor Brian Baker. They divorced in 2015, and Farrell played a role in the web-released fan film "". She is expected to appear in the same role in episodes of "Renegades", which strips mention of Star Trek for legal purposes.


title: Terry Farrell (actress)

text: Farrell retired from acting to concentrate on her family. She lived in Hershey, Pennsylvania, with her husband, former Sprint Corporation spokesman Brian Baker and their son, Max. She enjoys sewing and yoga.


title: Terry Farrell (actress)

text: Farrell appeared with Baker at the Hershey Area Playhouse in Hershey, in a production of A. R. Gurney's "Love Letters". Farrell and Baker have been divorced since December 2015.


title: Terry Farrell (actress)

text: In August 2015, she was reportedly in a relationship with Adam Nimoy and Farrell confirmed on Twitter that they were engaged. Farrell and Nimoy were married in San Francisco on March 26, 2018, Leonard Nimoy's 87th birthday. The marriage ended in divorce in 2022.


title: Terry Farrell (actress)

text: Farrell and her "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" co-star Nana Visitor were honored in 2001 when William Kwong Yu Yeung named two small Solar System bodies he had discovered after them – asteroid 26734 Terryfarrell and asteroid 26733 Nanavisitor.


title: Molly Quinn

text: Molly Caitlyn Quinn is an American actress who has worked in theatre, film, and television. Her roles include Alexis Castle, daughter of the title character on ABC's "Castle", and the voice of Bloom, one of the main characters in the Nickelodeon revival of "Winx Club".


title: Molly Quinn

text: Molly Quinn was born in Texarkana, Texas. She began taking weekly acting lessons from director and producer Martin Beck after performing in a community production of "The Nutcracker" at age six. In the sixth grade, she auditioned at the Young Actors Studio, and after six months of "intensive [acting] training", signed with the Osbrink agency and Management 360.


title: Molly Quinn

text: From 2009 to 2016, she starred in the ABC mystery drama series "Castle" as Alexis Rogers, the lead character's daughter.


title: Molly Quinn

text: From 2011 to 2015, Quinn performed the lead role of Bloom in Nickelodeon's revival of the animated series "Winx Club". At first, Quinn tried a "cartoony" voice for her character. Nickelodeon advised her to use her real voice instead, saying, "No, we want voices of real girls this time around." Quinn also voiced Bloom in the re-records of the and based on the series.


title: Molly Quinn

text: In March 2014, Quinn appeared as the voice of the sentient computer Fey, in the episode "Numbers" of the podcast series "Welcome to Night Vale".


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: Die Hard with a Vengeance is a 1995 American action thriller film directed by John McTiernan (who directed the first installment). It was written by Jonathan Hensleigh, based on the screenplay "Simon Says" by Hensleigh and on the characters created by Roderick Thorp for his 1979 novel "Nothing Lasts Forever". "Die Hard with a Vengeance" is the third film in the "Die Hard" film series, after "Die Hard 2" (1990). It is followed by "Live Free or Die Hard" (2007) and "A Good Day to Die Hard" (2013).


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: The film stars Bruce Willis as NYPD Lieutenant John McClane and Samuel L. Jackson as McClane's reluctant partner Zeus Carver, who team up to stop bomb threats across New York City carried out by "Simon" (Jeremy Irons). It was released on May 19, 1995 to mixed reviews and became the highest-grossing film of the year. The film later gained a cult following and has been considered by many critics and fans as the best sequel of the franchise.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: The Bonwit Teller department store in New York City is blown up by a bomb during the morning commute. A man identifying himself as "Simon" telephones the New York City Police Department (NYPD), claiming responsibility and threatens to detonate another bomb unless policeman, John McClane, is sent to Harlem wearing a sandwich board with a racist slur on it. The NYPD comply and send McClane to Harlem, where he is confronted by an electrician and shop owner named Zeus Carver. McClane explains his situation before a nearby crowd also confronts McClane over his sign. Carver intervenes and saves McClane, and they escape in a car. They arrive at 1 Police Plaza, where Simon demands that the pair follow a timed challenge or he will set off more bombs. They agree and McClane eventually boards the 3 train heading towards the Wall Street station in order to defuse a bomb that Simon planted on it. Carver arrives at the station before McClane finds the bomb and throws it on the tracks just as it explodes.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: McClane and Carver regroup with the NYPD and meet some FBI and CIA agents, who initially inform the pair that Simon is "Peter Krieg", a mercenary and former colonel in the National People's Army before revealing to them that Krieg is Simon Peter Gruber, the brother of Hans Gruber, who McClane killed years earlier in Los Angeles. Simon then places another call to the NYPD, informing them that he has planted an explosive in one of the city's elementary schools which is set to explode once class ends and can be triggered by the same radio frequencies utilised by law enforcement. Simon offers to give the authorities the school's location if McClane and Carver follow another timed challenge, warning that he will detonate the explosive if any evacuation attempts are carried out. While the pair solve Simon's next challenge, the NYPD begin to search all elementary schools in the city.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: McClane realizes that Simon is attempting to distract the NYPD away from Wall Street, which has no schools, and travels to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Building and discovers that Simon's men have stolen $140 billion of gold bullion from there using dump trucks. He follows the trucks into a water tunnel while Carver continues Simon's challenges. Simon blows up a cofferdam and floods the tunnel, but McClane escapes and reunites with Carver. Surviving a car chase with Simon's men, the pair find that they were carrying enough money to pay for a bridge toll. The pair sneak aboard a tanker docked in the Long Island Sound, but Simon's associates capture them and tie them up next to a bomb. Simon explains that his school threat was fake and broadcasts a message claiming that he is planning on destroying the tanker to destabilize the Western world's economy. After he leaves, Carver and McClane free themselves and escape the tanker just before the bomb detonates.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: As McClane and Carver are debriefed by the NYPD, McClane informs them that none of the bullion Simon's men stole was on the tanker's cargo hold, having deduced that Simon had intended to keep all of it for himself using his knowledge of the Gruber family's "modus operandi". While attempting to place a call to his estranged wife Holly, McClane glances at a bottle of aspirin given to him by Simon onboard the tanker and notices that it was purchased at a truck stop in the Canadian province of Quebec on the Canada–United States border. McClane informs the NYPD of his discovery, and joins them and Carver as they rush towards a warehouse near the truck stop where Simon and his men are redistributing the bullion and planning their escape. The rest of Simon's men are quickly apprehended by law enforcement personnel, though Simon and his girlfriend Katya attempt to escape via a helicopter. McClane catches up to them and shoots at an overhead power line, which falls onto the helicopter, causing it to crash into the ground and explode. While they are celebrating their triumph, Carver persuades McClane to place another call to Holly again.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: As with most of the films in the series, the premise of this film was repurposed from a stand-alone project. Producer Joel Silver and 20th Century Fox wanted the third "Die Hard" film to take place on a ship; to that effect, between 1991 and 1992 they hired screenwriter W. Peter Iliff to write a script for "Die Hard 3" which would take place on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, where John McClane and his wife are when it gets taken over by terrorists who threaten the passengers' lives with a bomb. Iliff had recently written "Point Break" (1991), which turned into a huge hit and was a principal factor in his hiring. The initial version of "Die Hard 3" would have been based on a spec script titled "Troubleshooter" by James Haggin, who wrote it in late 1989 and sold it to Largo Entertainment in March 1990, before Fox bought it from them in 1991, as they considered it ideal for the next "Die Hard" sequel. The original script required a number of rewrites to bring it in line with the series; however, the addition of several action sequences inflated the expected budget considerably.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: Iliff's second re-write of the script was in progress when a similar film, titled "Dreadnought" and starring Steven Seagal, went into production at Warner Bros. By the time Iliff completed his third re-write to remove or reduce similarities, the Seagal film was re-titled, first to "Last To Surrender" (because producers wanted three word title like Seagal's previous films had), and then to "Under Siege" (1992). Fox then decided it was pointless to keep trying to make this version of the third Die Hard film due to the perceived similarities. Ironically enough, before it was bought by Warner Bros for $1 million, J.F. Lawton's original 1990 spec script for "Under Siege" (titled "Dreadnought") had been offered to Joel Silver to be possibly re-written into "Die Hard 3", but Silver had refused. During script development, Warner Bros. offered Iliff a job of re-writing "Dreadnought", not knowing he was already working on "Die Hard 3". Silver and Fox even bought another similar spec titled "Supertanker" in order to prevent it from being produced before "Die Hard 3".


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: After the Iliff script was nixed, Largo Entertainment returned to the "Troubleshooter" script and tried to produce it as a feature film around 1994, without success. It was rumored that the script was later adapted and used for "". Jan De Bont, the director of "Speed" and "Twister" conceived the story for "Speed 2" independently from what was developed for the "cruise ship" version of "Die Hard 3", though certain elements were re-used in a minor capacity. Following all the issues during early development and previous problems he and Bruce Willis had with one another following the very troubled production of "The Last Boy Scout" (1991), Silver left the "Die Hard 3" production and never worked on any other "Die Hard" film or with Willis again, and John McTiernan, who was going to return to direct this version of the third film, also quit the project. McTiernan disliked the concept of the entire film taking place on a ship. Director Danny Cannon was then involved to direct the film for some time, possibly when later different scripts were in development.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: Between 1993 and 1994 at least three more versions of "Die Hard 3" were written, each one very different from the others. The first was written by John Milius and it took place in a jungle, and after his version was rejected, two more were written at the same time by two different writers. One by Doug Richardson which took place in Los Angeles subways taken over by terrorists who are actually planning to rob the federal reserve of the city, and second by John Fasano which took place across an entire city (New York or L.A.) as McClane chases kidnappers who took his teenage daughter, thinking she was the daughter of some rich industrialist. Both scripts were rejected by Willis, who felt they were more like "Die Hard" rip-offs, although the ending of Richardson's script was used for the ending of "Speed", which Richardson confirmed in interviews. Interestingly, the "Die Hard in the jungle" storyline was also at one point going to be used for the fourth "Die Hard" film which was in development around 1997, based on the original script by Alan B. McElroy titled "Tears of the Sun", about a group of people who go to the Amazon to set up a radio relay station only to end up encountering drug dealers and then having to escape through the jungle from them. Bruce Willis really liked McElroy's script, which was also considered to be re-written into a new modern "Tarzan" film before Willis had it changed into "Die Hard 4", and when the version of "Die Hard 4" based on it wasn't made, he requested for the title of his 2002 action war film "Man of War" to be renamed to "Tears of the Sun", which is why the film is occasionally erroneously cited as being based on the same script as the unproduced "Die Hard 4".


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: Finally, after Brandon Lee's death on set of "The Crow", Fox took another spec script titled "Simon Says" by Jonathan Hensleigh, which was offered as Lee's next film and considered as a sequel to Lee's "Rapid Fire", and decided to adapt it into what eventually became "Die Hard With a Vengeance". Hensleigh's original script was about a mad bomber who wants revenge against a police detective who is forced by the bomber to find and stop his bombs from exploding, and the only help he has is a shop owner who becomes involved by accident. Originally in early 1993 Joel Silver and Warner Bros. tried to buy "Simon Says" to have it re-written into "Lethal Weapon 4", but 20th Century Fox bought it instead. The script then went through dozens of different re-writes by writers such as Hensleigh, Dan Bronson, Lorenzo Semple Jr, David Shaber, and others. At some point during re-writes Zeus was changed into a female character which Angela Bassett was in talks to play. Even after the movie was completed, a new ending had to be written and filmed to replace the darker original ending, in which McClane is blamed for everything that's happened and loses his job, but still manages to track down Simon months later and makes Simon kill himself by accident after playing a game called "McClane Says".


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: Andy Vajna replaced Joel Silver and Larry Gordon as the producer on the film due to a fall-out with Willis. As a result, Vajna's company, Cinergi, acquired foreign rights to the film. Through their international distribution subsidiary - Cinergi Productions N.V. Inc., they pre-sold the movie to Disney and Summit Entertainment, while Fox retained North American and Japanese rights. In July 1997, Cinergi sold its 50% stake in the film to Fox for $11.25 million.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: Laurence Fishburne was originally offered the co-starring role of Zeus Carver, a part also written for him, but wanted a higher fee. Producer Andy Vajna held out on the deal. Fishburne had earlier turned down the role of Jules Winnfield in "Pulp Fiction", which was eventually played by Samuel L. Jackson. Fishburne was talked out of playing Jules by his representatives who wanted him to only accept leading parts, otherwise he would be stuck career-wise as a supporting actor. Subsequently, "Pulp Fiction" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival during the same time as Fishburne's pay negotiations. Vajna also attended the event to support Willis who was appearing in the Quentin Tarantino film. Tarantino recalled that Vajna was so impressed by Jackson's performance that he offered him the part of Carver instead. Fishburne later filed a lawsuit against Vajna's company Cinergi for reneging on a verbal agreement. The lawsuit took two years and Fishburne received a settlement.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: Michael Kamen returned to score the third film, again incorporating other material into his score (most notably "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", not included on the soundtrack album). Excerpts from his scores for "Die Hard" and "Die Hard 2" were also included in the new film. The soundtrack was released by RCA Victor.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: In 2012, La-La Land Records released a limited edition two-disc soundtrack containing the Kamen score.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: Unlike its predecessors, "Die Hard with a Vengeance" did not take place during Christmas. It opened in theaters on May 19, 1995, five years after "Die Hard 2". Despite concerns about the film portraying bomb threats and terrorism with the Oklahoma City bombing having occurred the previous month, the film was released as originally scheduled.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: "Die Hard with a Vengeance" was released on VHS on December 19, 1995 along with a THX certified version. It was then released on LaserDisc on January 17, 1996, and on DVD on March 9, 1999. A special edition was released on DVD on July 10, 2001 and then re-released in February 2005 and 2007. The film was released on Blu-ray in 2007 and 2013.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: An alternative ending to the one shown in the final movie was filmed with Jeremy Irons and Bruce Willis, set some time after the events in New York. It can be found on the Special Edition DVD. In this version, it is presumed that the robbery succeeds, and that McClane was used as the scapegoat for everything that went wrong. He is fired from the NYPD after more than 20 years on the force and the FBI has even taken away his pension. Nevertheless, he still manages to track Simon using the batch number on the bottle of aspirins and they meet in a bar in Hungary. In this version, Simon has double-crossed most of his accomplices, gotten the loot to a safe hiding place somewhere in Hungary, and has the gold turned into statuettes of the Empire State Building in order to smuggle it out of the country; but he is still tracked down to his foreign hideaway. McClane is keen to take his problems out on Simon, who he invites to play a game called "McClane Says". This involves a form of Russian roulette with a small Chinese rocket launcher that has had the sights removed, meaning it is impossible to determine which end is which. McClane then asks Simon some riddles similar to the ones he played in New York. When Simon gets a riddle wrong, McClane forces him at gunpoint to fire the launcher, which fires the rocket through Simon, killing him.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: In the DVD audio commentary, screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh claims that this version was dropped because the studio thought it showed a more cruel and menacing side to McClane, a man who killed for revenge rather than in self-defense. The studio was also displeased with the lack of action in the scene, feeling that it did not fit as a "climax" and therefore chose to reshoot the finale as an action sequence at a significant monetary cost. Hensleigh's intention was to show that the events in New York and the subsequent repercussions had tilted McClane psychologically. This alternative ending, set some time after the film's main events, would have marked a serious break from the "Die Hard" formula, in which the plot unfolds over a period of roughly 12 hours.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: According to the DVD audio commentary, a second alternative ending had McClane and Carver floating back to shore on a makeshift raft after the explosion at sea. Carver says it is a shame the bad guys are going to get away; McClane tells him not to be so sure. The scene then shifts to the plane where the terrorists find the briefcase bomb they left in the park and which Carver gave back to them (in this version it was not used to blow up the dam). The film would end on a darkly comic note as Simon asks if anyone has a four-gallon jug. This draft of the script was rejected early on – possibly due to the similarity of the ending to "Die Hard 2", where all the villains board a plane that later explodes – so it was never actually filmed. The rocket-launcher sequence was the only alternative ending to be filmed.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: "Die Hard with a Vengeance" opened in the United States on May 19, 1995 and earned $22,162,245 in its opening weekend. In Japan, it set a record opening for 20th Century Fox with a five-day gross of $13.5 million, beating "Return of the Jedi" and ranking number one for five consecutive weeks, grossing over $81 million. Its opening in France set a summer record with a gross of $8.8 million in its first 8 days. The film went on to gross $100,012,499 in the United States and Canada, and $266,089,167 in other markets, giving it a total worldwide gross of $366,101,666 and making it the highest-grossing film of 1995.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 58% based on 77 reviews, with an average rating of 6.10/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""Die Hard with a Vengeance" gets off to a fast start and benefits from Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson's barbed interplay, but clatters to a bombastic finish in a vain effort to cover for an overall lack of fresh ideas." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 58 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: Roger Ebert of "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three stars out of four, praising the action sequences and the performances of Willis, Jackson, and Irons, concluding: ""Die Hard with a Vengeance" is basically a wind-up action toy, cleverly made, and delivered with high energy. It delivers just what it advertises, with a vengeance." "Entertainment Weekly"s Owen Gleiberman disliked the film, stating that while "[John] McTiernan stages individual sequences with great finesse... they don't add up to a taut, dread-ridden whole". James Berardinelli thought that the explosions and fights were "filmed with consummate skill, and are thrilling in their own right". Samuel L. Jackson's performance in the film was also praised by critics. Desson Howe of "The Washington Post" thought that "the best thing about the movie is the relationship between McClane and Zeus," saying that Jackson was "almost as good as he was in "Pulp Fiction"." For "Variety", Brian Lowry wrote the film was the "least accomplished" of the "Die Hard" series, but "even a subpar adventure won't kill this series, as the pic's built-in audience will make it a major summer attraction, if perhaps one lacking quite the stamina of the first two movies".


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: "Empire" magazine's Ian Nathan gave the film a three out of five stars review, stating that ""Die Hard with a Vengeance" is better than "Die Hard 2", but not as good as the peerless original. Though it's breathless fun, the film runs out of steam in the last act. And Jeremy Irons' villain isn't fit to tie Alan Rickman's shoelaces." In the "Crime Time Filmbook", which archives various UK film reviews, the film was given a 5/5 star review citing it as "...simply the best Action film of the decade, leaving imitators like "Bad Boys", "Executive Decision", "The Rock" and "Chain Reaction" in varying depths of shadow.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: "Empire" considered it to be one of the 50 greatest film sequels in 2009. Ben Sherlock of "Screen Rant" regarded it as the best sequel of the franchise. Johnny Hoffman from Movieweb considered it a step up from the previous film and praised Willis and Jackson's chemistry and the action scenes.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: A novelization by Deborah Chiel was first published on May 28, 1995. The novel is written in third person omniscient and has a somewhat darker tone in comparison to the final film.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: The novel provides a deeper exploration into McClane's psyche and shows how angry and broken he has become since leaving Holly and becoming an alcoholic. McClane's introduction is also different. In the film, McClane is first seen in the police van to Harlem while being briefed on what is going on. The novel includes a scene before this where Connie and Joe find McClane in his messy apartment.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: Simon's henchwoman Katya appears much later into the story than she does in the film. She is not involved in the Federal Reserve robbery and instead appears just before Simon and Targo take off in one of the dump trucks. Like the final film, she ends up killing Targo for Simon.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: The original placement of the "Yippee-Ki-Yay" line is included. Instead of being used at the end, McClane uses the line when talking to Simon over the radios while in the aqueducts. This was meant to be in the same vein as the original use of the line in the first movie.


title: Die Hard with a Vengeance

text: Zeus' original backstory is presented in the novel, explaining why he is looking after his nephews and why he hates white people. During the car chase, Zeus explains that his brother was killed during a drug raid. When McClane suggests that it was his brother's own fault, Zeus explains that his brother was never involved in drugs and the only reason he was there was to bring Zeus home.


title: Alias (TV series)

text: Alias is an American action thriller and science fiction television series created by J. J. Abrams, which was broadcast on ABC for five seasons from September 30, 2001, to May 22, 2006. It stars Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristow, a double agent for the Central Intelligence Agency posing as an operative for SD-6, a worldwide criminal and espionage organization. Main co-stars throughout all five seasons included Michael Vartan as Michael Vaughn, Ron Rifkin as Arvin Sloane, and Victor Garber as Jack Bristow.


title: Alias (TV series)

text: The first two seasons of "Alias" mainly explore Sydney's obligation to hide her true career from her friends and family as she assumes multiple aliases to carry out missions as well as her efforts to take down SD-6 with the help of the CIA. The series' later seasons deal with multiple character and plot driven storylines, with a recurring focus on the search for and recovery of artifacts created by Milo Rambaldi, a fictitious Renaissance-era figure with similarities to both Leonardo da Vinci and Nostradamus.


title: Alias (TV series)

text: "Alias" was well received among critics and has been included in several "best of" lists, including the American Film Institute's top ten list for television programs in 2003. The series also received numerous awards and nominations. "Alias" is considered to be part of a wave of television series from the late 1990s and early 2000s that feature strong female characters, alongside "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "", "La Femme Nikita", and "Dark Angel".