University of Victoria professor and blogger, David Leach, has compared the film to other recent kibbutz documentaries in terms of the five stages of grief each appears to represent: whereas Degania: The First Kibbutz Fights Its Last Battle (2008) documents anger and bargaining, and Kibbutz (2005) depression, "[i]n Keeping the Kibbutz, we get to see kibbutzniks who have reached that fifth and final stage—who have accepted, however reluctantly, the changes that have overtaken their community but still look back with fondness and nostalgia at the unique communal society from which they all emerged."David Leach, Review: Keeping the Kibbutz (May 18, 2010).
