What reservations did Martin Buber have about the kibbutz movement?

In his work Paths in Utopia (1949), Martin Buber praised the kibbutz as a "bold Jewish undertaking" and an "exemplary non-failure" of utopian socialism. However, he maintained a significant reservation regarding the movement's ideological foundation.1

Buber’s primary concern was that kibbutz members generally disregarded the relationship between man and God. While he acknowledged that they successfully fulfilled the commandment to build a just community in their interpersonal relations, he criticized their tendency to deny or doubt the existence of a divine counterpart. Buber argued that these members were operating under "prejudices of youth," where they mistakenly identified outworn, traditional images of God with the living, imageless God himself. Consequently, he viewed their denial of the divine origin of their social imperatives as a fundamental limitation to the movement's ultimate success.1