Ein Tzurim ( he, עֵין צוּרִים, ''lit.'' Rock Spring) is a religious
kibbutz
A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...
in southern
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 south of
Kiryat Malakhi
Kiryat Malakhi ( he, קִרְיַת מַלְאָכִי, also Qiryat Malakhi or Kiryat Malachi) is a city in the Southern District of Israel, from Ashkelon. In it had a population of . Its jurisdiction is 4,632 dunams (~4.6 km2).
Histor ...
, it falls under the jurisdiction of
Shafir Regional Council
Shafir Regional Council ( he, מועצה אזורית שפיר, ''Mo'atza Azorit Shafir'') is a List of regional councils in Israel, regional council in the Southern District (Israel), Southern District of Israel near the city of Kiryat Gat.
The c ...
and is a member of the
Religious Kibbutz Movement
The Religious Kibbutz Movement ( he, הקיבוץ הדתי, ''HaKibbutz HaDati'') is an organizational framework for Orthodox kibbutzim in Israel. Its membership includes 22 communities, 16 of them traditional kibbutzim, and 6 others in the cate ...
. In it had a population of .
History
Original kibbutz
The kibbutz was founded on 23 October 1946 as a new settlement in
Gush Etzion
Gush Etzion ( he, גּוּשׁ עֶצְיוֹן, ' Etzion Bloc) is a cluster of Israeli settlements located in the Judaean Mountains, directly south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the West Bank. The core group includes four Jewish agricultural v ...
(east of the present-day location). Its founders were Palestine-born members of the fifth
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 mi ...
of
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 ...
that had formed in
Tirat Zvi
Tirat Zvi ( he, טִירַת צְבִי, lit. ''Zvi Castle'') is a religious kibbutz in the Beit She'an Valley, ten kilometers south of the city of Beit She'an, Israel, just west of the Jordan River and the Israel-Jordan border. It falls under the ...
.
By 1947 the kibbutz had a population of 80. However, during the
1948 Arab–Israeli war
The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...
, it was destroyed by the
Jordanian army
The Royal Jordanian Army (Arabic: القوّات البرية الاردنيّة; ) is the ground force branch of the Jordanian Armed Forces (JAF). It draws its origins from units such as the Arab Legion, formed in the British Mandate of Transj ...
along with all the other settlements in Gush Etzion. The men who stayed to fight were captured as prisoners of war and taken to the
Mafrak Prisoner of War camp.
With the renewal of
Jewish settlement in Gush Etzion after the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...
, a new kibbutz called
Rosh Tzurim
Rosh Tzurim ( he, רֹאשׁ צוּרִים, eng. Top of the Rocks) is an Israeli settlement and religious kibbutz in the West Bank established in 1969. It is located about south of Jerusalem, 3.9 km east of the Green Line, inside barr ...
was founded on the original location of Ein Tzurim.
Relocation
![Ein Tzurim](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Ein_Tzurim.jpg)
In 1949 the people who left Ein Tzurim founded a new kibbutz in south-central Israel near the existing villages of
Zerahia,
Shafir
Shafir ( he, שָׁפִיר) is a moshav in southern Israel. Located in the Shephelah near Kiryat Malakhi, it falls under the jurisdiction of Shafir Regional Council. In it had a population of .
History
Shafir was founded on 15 August 1949 by imm ...
and
Merkaz Shapira
Merkaz Shapira ( he, מֶרְכַּז שַׁפִּירָא) (lit: Shapira Center) is a religious village in the Southern District of Israel. Located in the southern Shephelah between Kiryat Malakhi and Ashkelon, it falls under the jurisdiction of ...
, and they named it "Ein Tzurim" as a symbol of continuity. It was founded on land belonging to the
depopulated Palestinian village of
al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya
Al-Sawafir al-Sharqiyya was a Palestinian Arab village in the Gaza Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1948 War on May 18, 1948, as part of the second stage of Operation Barak. The village was located 32 km northeast of Gaza.
Histor ...
.
In the 1980s two major educational centers were built in the area of the kibbutz; Yeshivat Kibbutz HaDati and the
Yaakov Herzog
Yaakov Herzog ( he, יעקב דוד הרצוג, 11 December 1921 – 9 March 1972) was an Irish-born Israeli diplomat.
Biography
Yaakov Herzog was born in Dublin, Ireland. His father was Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, the second Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of ...
Center for the Study of
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
. However, in 2008 the yeshiva closed due to insufficient enrollment.
Swan song for kibbutz yeshiva
Ynetnews, 3 October 2008 Every Yom Kippur former students return to pray together.
After the Gaza disengagement
The Israeli disengagement from Gaza ( he, תוכנית ההתנתקות, ') was the unilateral dismantling in 2005 of the 21 Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and the evacuation of Israeli settlers and army from inside the Gaza Strip.
Th ...
in 2005, some evacuees from Gush Katif
Gush Katif ( he, גוש קטיף, , Harvest Bloc) was a bloc of 17 Israeli settlements in the southern Gaza strip. In August 2005, the Israeli army forcibly removed the 8,600 residents of Gush Katif from their homes after a decision from the Ca ...
moved into a trailer park
A trailer park,caravan park, mobile home park, mobile home community or manufactured home community is a temporary or permanent area for mobile homes and travel trailers. Advantages include low cost compared to other housing, and quick and eas ...
near the kibbutz and plans were drawn up for permanent housing.
Economy
The economy is based on fruit orchards (lemon
The lemon (''Citrus limon'') is a species of small evergreen trees in the flowering plant family Rutaceae, native to Asia, primarily Northeast India (Assam), Northern Myanmar or China.
The tree's ellipsoidal yellow fruit is used for culin ...
and persimmon
The persimmon is the edible fruit of a number of species of trees in the genus ''Diospyros''. The most widely cultivated of these is the Oriental persimmon, ''Diospyros kaki'' ''Diospyros'' is in the family Ebenaceae, and a number of non-pers ...
), vegetable crops (artichoke
The globe artichoke (''Cynara cardunculus'' var. ''scolymus'' ),Rottenberg, A., and D. Zohary, 1996: "The wild ancestry of the cultivated artichoke." Genet. Res. Crop Evol. 43, 53–58. also known by the names French artichoke and green articho ...
s), dairy farming and turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
-breeding. The kibbutz also has an air-conditioner factory and runs a guesthouse.
Historic images
File:The four kibbutzes of the Gush Etzion Bloc (Kfar Etzion, Ein Zurim, Massuot Yitzhak, Revadim) overlaid on the 1943 Survey of Palestine map of Beit Fajjar.jpg, The four kibbutzes of the Gush Etzion
Gush Etzion ( he, גּוּשׁ עֶצְיוֹן, ' Etzion Bloc) is a cluster of Israeli settlements located in the Judaean Mountains, directly south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the West Bank. The core group includes four Jewish agricultural v ...
at the time of the 1948 war (Kfar Etzion
Kfar Etzion ( he, כְּפַר עֶצְיוֹן, ''lit.'' Etzion Village) is an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, organized as a religious kibbutz located in the Judean Hills between Jerusalem and Hebron in the southern West Bank, established ...
, Ein Zurim, Massuot Yitzhak
Masu'ot Yitzhak ( he, מְשּׂוּאוֹת יִצְחָק, ''lit.'' Yitzhak's Beacons) is a moshav shitufi in southern Israel. Located near Ashkelon, it falls under the jurisdiction of Shafir Regional Council. The original kibbutz in Gush Etzio ...
, Revadim
Revadim ( he, רְבָדִים, ''lit.'' terraces) is a kibbutz in southern Israel. Located in the southern Shephelah (Judean foothills) region, it falls under the jurisdiction of Yoav Regional Council. In it had a population of .
History
Reva ...
) overlaid on a 1943 Survey of Palestine
The Survey of Palestine was the government department responsible for the survey and mapping of Palestine during the British mandate period.
The survey department was established in 1920 in Jaffa, and moved to the outskirts of Tel Aviv in 19 ...
map
File:עין צורים - מראה כללי-JNF026903.jpeg, Ein Tzurim 1947
File:Ein Tzurim 1947.jpg, Kibbutz Ein Tzurim, 1947
File:עין צורים - "בני עקיבא" - ביום העליה לבני-עקיבא (אבו-זייד) בהרי חברון - הקמת המחנה.-JNF001825.jpeg, Ein Tzurim under construction October 1946
File:עין צורים - "בני עקיבא" - חגיגת העליה לבני-עקיבא (אבו-זייד) בהרי חברון .-JNF001831.jpeg, Ein Tzurim Aliyah celebrations October 1946
References
Further reading
*Yossi Katz
Yossi Katz ( he, יוסי כץ, born 19 August 1949) is an Israeli former politician who served as a member of the Knesset for the Labor Party and One Israel between 1992 and 2003.
Biography
Born in Haifa, Katz studied law at the Hebrew Unive ...
, ''Between Jerusalem and Hebron: Jewish Settlement in the Pre-State Period''
External links
Information about the original Kibbutz Ein Tzurim
Etzion Bloc
Yaakov Herzog Center for Jewish Studies
{{Shafir Regional Council
Kibbutzim
Religious Kibbutz Movement
Populated places established in 1946
Populated places established in 1949
Jewish villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War
Jewish villages in Mandatory Palestine
Populated places in Southern District (Israel)
1946 establishments in Mandatory Palestine
1949 establishments in Israel