Merhavia (Kibbutz)

Kibbutz Merhavia is located in the Jezreel Valley in northern Israel, at the foot of the Givat haMore Mountain, 2 km east of Afula . The area of ​​the kibbutz is 800 ha ^[2] . Administratively refers to the regional council of Emek-Jezreel ^[1] .

On the territory of the kibbutz, the ruins of the fortress of the crusaders La Fev, dating back to the XII century, are preserved. In 1183, a major battle between the crusaders and Muslim troops took place in these places ^[2] . Next to the kibbutz Merkhavia is the eponymous moshav , founded in 1924 ^[3] . Along the southwestern border of the kibbutz is local highway 71 connecting Afula with Beit Shean .

Negotiations on the purchase of land for Jewish settlements in the Jezreel Valley have been ongoing since 1891. They were led by the financier Yehoshua Hankin with the owner of the land - Effendi Sursuk living in Beirut . As a result, an agreement was reached on the acquisition of 9,500 dunams of land in the area of ​​the Arab village of Fula. Funded the purchase from the assets of the Anglo-Palestinian Bank , as well as from the personal funds of the wealthy Russian Jew Eliyahu Blumenfeld ^[4] . The deal was concluded in 1910 and became the first purchase of land for Jewish settlements in the Jezreel Valley ^[3] .

The Jewish National Fund bought the 3.5 thousand dunums from the land acquired by Khankin, who founded a cooperative on them (the author of the project is Franz Oppenheimer ^[2] ), Blumenfeld received another thousand dunums, which arranged an agricultural farm ^[3] . By the time of the acquisition of land, Hankin had agreed with the leadership of the Jewish organization HaShomer that volunteers from among its members would be sent to settle it; in the past, members of the organization were engaged only in the defense of villages where other Jews worked. On November 11, 1910, members of Hashomer, Nathan Bregman (Zvi Nadav), Yitzhak Nadav and Yigal Eliovich, together with Khankin, occupied the top of the Ful hill, and a few days later five more settlers joined them. The cooperative Merkhavia, headed by Shlomo Dick, began to function ^[4] . Attempts by Arabs from neighboring villages to obtain payment for “protection” from the Jews were unsuccessful, and pressure from the local Ottoman administration did not help them either. In early 1911, the cooperators began their first sowing. Other single settlers, including Jews from Glasgow , acquired land next to Blumenfeld, and in 1912-1913, a moshav was formed near the cooperative Merkhavia ^[3] .

The cooperative Merkhavia lasted until the end of World War I , during which the German Air Force base was temporarily located on its territory ^[2] , but everyday difficulties and growing economic inequality between ordinary members and the leadership led to its collapse in 1918 ^[4] . Some members of the cooperative joined the neighboring moshavim, the rest went to other Jewish settlements, after the beginning of the Third Aliyah that arose in the Jezreel Valley. In 1924, the moshavim Merkhavia was transformed into a workers' settlement (“moshavim ovdim”) ^[3] .

The cooperative’s household yard continued to function until 1921 as a place for training new settlers ^[5] . Since 1921, a group of about forty demobilized soldiers of the Jewish Legion - immigrants from the USA lived on this site, and in 1929 a group of settlers from Galicia settled on this site. These members of the Hashomer Hashair movement founded the kibbutz on the site of the former cooperative. Golda Meir lived in this kibbutz after arriving in Palestine. ^[2] In the beginning, kibbutzniks were engaged in rainfed farming due to the lack of water for irrigation. Over time, a barn, a house and a goat pasture were built, and the use of new improved grades of grain began. With the laying of irrigation canals in the kibbutz, cultivation of water-loving crops, including citrus, began. After the Nazis came to power in Germany, groups of Jewish youth from this country were accepted in Merhavia. In 1960, the first industrial enterprise was opened in the kibbutz - a plant for the production of plastic pipes, which became a leading employer for residents of Merkhavia. Over time, the economy of Merkhavia became more open, and in addition to members of the kibbutz, other residents began to settle in it ^[5] .

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics of Israel , the population at the beginning of 2018 was 1,162 people ^[6] .

According to the 2008 census, the median age of residents was 35 years; more than a quarter of the population were children and adolescents under the age of 17 years inclusive, 16% were people of retirement age (65 years and older) ^[7] .

The population is predominantly Jewish , 80% of Jewish residents are natives of Israel, most of the returnees arrived in the country before 1990. In 2008, about 60% of the population of Merkhavia over the age of 15 years were married; the median age of marriage is 26 years. The average household size is 1.5 people; in most households there was only one person. On average, an adult woman had 0.4 children ^[7] . In the kibbutz there are educational institutions for children of preschool and primary school age, for older children the regional council organized delivery to a secondary school in the neighboring kibbutz Mizra ^[1] .

• merchavia.org.il - the official site of the kibbutz Merhavia
• Merhavia, Kibbutz (Hebrew) on the website of the Emek-Jezreel Regional Council
• Kibbutz Merhavia, Valley (Hebrew) on the website of the Office of Development of Galilee
• Merhavia - article from the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia