Beit Yehoshua ( he, בֵּית יְהוֹשֻעַ, , House of Yehoshua) is a
moshav in central
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
. Located in the
coastal plain
A coastal plain is flat, low-lying land adjacent to a sea coast. A fall line commonly marks the border between a coastal plain and a piedmont area. Some of the largest coastal plains are in Alaska and the southeastern United States. The Gulf Co ...
near
Netanya, it falls under the jurisdiction of
Hof HaSharon Regional Council
Hof HaSharon Regional Council ( he, מועצה אזורית חוף השרון, ''Mo'atza Azorit Hof HaSharon'', ''lit.'' Sharon Coast Regional Council), is a regional council in the Central and Tel Aviv districts of Israel. It is located on the co ...
. In it had a population of . The
Beit Yehoshua Railway Station
Bet Yehoshua railway station ( he, תחנת הרכבת בית יהושע, ''Taḥanat HaRakevet Beit Yehoshua'') is an Israel Railways passenger station located in Beit Yehoshua and serves the village and the southern part of the city of Netanya, ...
is adjacent to the moshav.
History
The region of Beit Yehoshua has been inhabited intermittently since the
Middle Paleolithic age, with peak periods of settlement during the
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
(4th–7th centuries CE) and
Late Ottoman periods (19th–early 20th centuries CE). Before the
20th century the area formed part of the Forest of Sharon and was part of the lands of the village of
Ghabat Kafr Sur. It was an open
woodland
A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (se ...
dominated by
Mount Tabor Oak, which extended from
Kfar Yona
Kfar Yona ( he, כְּפַר יוֹנָה, lit=Yona's Village) is a city in the Sharon subdistrict in the Central District of Israel. It is about 7 km east of Netanya. With a jurisdiction of 11,017 dunams (~11 km²). in it had a popul ...
in the north to
Ra'anana
Ra'anana ( he, רַעֲנָנָּה, lit. "Fresh") is a city in the southern Sharon Plain of the Central District of Israel. It was founded in 1922 as an American-Jewish settlement, 1 km south of the village of Tabsur, where an important ...
in the south. The local Arab inhabitants traditionally used the area for pasture, firewood and intermittent cultivation. The intensification of settlement and agriculture in the
coastal plain
A coastal plain is flat, low-lying land adjacent to a sea coast. A fall line commonly marks the border between a coastal plain and a piedmont area. Some of the largest coastal plains are in Alaska and the southeastern United States. The Gulf Co ...
during the
19th century led to deforestation and subsequent environmental degradation.
The village was established as a
kibbutz on 17 August 1938 by
gar'in
Gar'in (, ''lit.'' kernel) is a Hebrew term used for groups of people who moved together to Ottoman Palestine, British Palestine, and since 1948, Israel.Joel Beinin The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry- 2005 9774248902 "arrived in Israel while the m ...
of the
Bnei Akiva
Bnei Akiva ( he, בְּנֵי עֲקִיבָא, , "Children of Akiva") is the largest religious Zionist youth movement in the world, with over 125,000 members in 42 countries. It was first established in Mandatory Palestine in 1929.
History
B ...
and
HaNoar HaTzioni movements as part of the
tower and stockade settlement programme. According to the
Jewish National Fund, the original settlers were
orthodox
Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to:
Religion
* Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...
and were engaged in intensive farming and citrus.
It was named after
Yehoshua (Ozjasz) Thon, a
Galician Zionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
leader.
By 1947 it had a population of about 150.
In 1950 it became a
moshav shitufi
A moshav shitufi ( he, מושב שיתופי, lit. ''collective moshav'', pl. ''moshavim shitufiim'') is a type of cooperative Israeli village, whose organizational principles place it between the kibbutz and the moshav on the scale of cooperation ...
, and later a moshav ovdim.
File:מראה בית-יהושע בשרון-JNF011873.jpeg, Beit Yehoshua 1939
File:Tel Tsur 1944.jpg, Beit Yehoshua 1944 1:20,000 (lower right quadrant)
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Moshavim
Former kibbutzim
Populated places established in 1938
Jewish villages in Mandatory Palestine
Populated places in Central District (Israel)
1938 establishments in Mandatory Palestine