Former IDF Chief of Staff and Defense Minister Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon was among the founders of Kibbutz Grofit in the Arava in 1967 and worked as a cowherd and bulldozer operator. Recently it turned out that Ya’alon was still a member of the kibbutz and owns a house there, even though his home address has been for decades in Modi’in-Maccabim-Reut, and he has visited his second house on the kibbutz very infrequently.
In mid-October, 2023, Ya’alon received a message from the kibbutz that he had to make up his mind: come back to the kibbutz and give up his home outside Tel Aviv, or vice versa.
Aviva, community manager at Kibbutz Grofit, told Ynet: “As in other kibbutzim, according to the kibbutz bylaws, the members must live on the kibbutz, and if a member does not live on the kibbutz, this would be a reason to terminate his membership. For many years, the kibbutz allowed the Ya’alon couple to live outside the kibbutz without revoking their membership, out of recognition and support for Ya’alon’s desire to perform key public functions in the State of Israel. Now he does not hold any such position (Chief of Staff, MK, government minister), and there is no longer any justification for allowing the couple to conduct themselves differently than the other members.”
Aviva explained that the Ya’alons had been given a year and a half to decide, by the end of 2023, whether to return to the kibbutz as full members or to have their membership terminated.
According to 14 News, as long as the old guard was managing the kibbutz, they allowed the Ya’alons to lead a double life. But recently a new management took over and began to apply pressure on the couple to give up their house. According to sources in the kibbutz, Ya’alon fought back, but in a recent membership vote, the kibbutz members decided by a vast majority to cancel Ya’alon’s membership and take back his house.
Back in 2020, Ya’alon settled out of court with attorney Dan Shimron who had sued him for libel for saying Shimron earned millions in bribes related to the purchase of German submarines. The suit was for half a million shekels, and Ya’alon paid 88,000.
