Kfar Hittim ( he, כְּפַר חִטִּים) is 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 ...
in northern Israel. Located on a hill 3 km west of
Tiberias
Tiberias ( ; he, טְבֶרְיָה, ; ar, طبريا, Ṭabariyyā) is an Israeli city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's F ...
, it falls under the jurisdiction of
Lower Galilee Regional Council
The Lower Galilee Regional Council ( he, מועצה אזורית הגליל התחתון, ''Mo'atza Azorit HaGalil HaTahton'') is a regional council in the Northern District of Israel. Lower Galilee Regional Council encompasses most of the settle ...
. It was Israel's first moshav shitufi,
[Moshav Shitufi, Tnu'at HaAvoda](_blank)
[Moshav Shitufi](_blank)
Historical Dictionary of Israel and can also be considered the first
Tower and Stockade settlement.
[Which is First Tower and Blockade Settlement](_blank)
Ma'ariv, 10.12.1986, Historical Jewish Press In it had a population of .
History
Hittin was located on the northern slopes of the double hill known as "
Horns of Hattin
The Horns of Hattin ( he, קרני חיטין, Karnei Hittin ar, قرون حطين, Qurûn Hattîn) is an extinct volcano with twin peaks overlooking the plains of Hattin in the Lower Galilee, Israel.
Kurûn Hattîn is believed to be the site ...
." It was strategically and commercially significant due to its location overlooking the Plain of Hittin, which opens onto the coastal lowlands of
Lake Tiberias
The Sea of Galilee ( he, יָם כִּנֶּרֶת, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ar, بحيرة طبريا), also called Lake Tiberias, Kinneret or Kinnereth, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest f ...
to the east, and to the west is linked by mountain passes leading towards the plains of the Lower
Galilee. These plains, with their east-west passages, served as routes for commercial
caravans and military invasions.
[Khalidi, 1992, p. 521.]
Prehistorical finds
Archaeological excavations have yielded pottery fragments from the
Pottery Neolithic
In the archaeology of Southwest Asia, the Late Neolithic, also known as the Ceramic Neolithic or Pottery Neolithic, is the final part of the Neolithic period, following on from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and preceding the Chalcolithic. It is some ...
and
Chalcolithic period
The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...
.
[Nimrod Getzov, 2007]
Hittin
Volume 119, Year 2007, Israel Antiquities Authority
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA, he, רשות העתיקות ; ar, داﺌرة الآثار, before 1990, the Israel Department of Antiquities) is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of ...
Antiquity
It has been suggested that the Arab village of Hittin was built over the
Canaan
Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...
ite town of Siddim or
Ziddim (), which in the third century BCE acquired the
Old Hebrew
Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an wikt:archaic, archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the ...
name ''Kfar Hittin'' ("village of grain"). It was known as ''Kfar Hittaya'' in the
Roman period.
[See p. 77 1in: ] In the 4th century CE, it was a Jewish rabbinical town.
[
]
Ottoman period
Arab village
In 1596, Hittin was a part of the Ottoman '' Nāḥiyah'' ( ar, نَـاحِـيَـة, "Subdistrict") of Tiberias under the '' Liwā’'' ( ar, لِـوَاء, "District") of Safed. The villagers paid taxes on wheat, barley, olives
The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'', meaning 'European olive' in Latin, is a species of small tree or shrub in the family Oleaceae, found traditionally in the Mediterranean Basin. When in shrub form, it is known as ''Olea europaea'' 'M ...
, goats and beehives.[Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 190. Quoted in Khalidi, p. 521.] Richard Pococke
Richard Pococke (19 November 1704 – 25 September 1765)''Notes and Queries'', p. 129. was an English-born churchman, inveterate traveller and travel writer. He was the Bishop of Ossory (1756–65) and Meath (1765), both dioceses of the Church ...
, who visited in 1727, writes that the village was "famous for some pleasant gardens of lemon and orange trees; and here the Turks have a mosque
A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...
, to which they pay great veneration, having, as they say, a great sheik buried there, whom they call Sede Ishab, who, according to tradition (as a very learned Jew assured me) is Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses."[Pococke, 1745, vol 2, p]
67
/ref> William McClure Thomson, who visited in the 1850s, reported that visiting the shrine was considered a cure for insanity. In 1875 Victor Guérin
Victor Guérin (15 September 1821 – 21 Septembe 1890) was a French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included Greece, Asia Min ...
wrote about the local tradition that the tomb of Jethro (''Neby Chaʾīb''), the father-in-law of Moses, was found in Hittin.
A population list from about 1887 showed 1,350 inhabitants; 100 Jews and 1,250 Muslims. An elementary school was established in the village around 1897.[
In the early 20th-century, village land in the eastern part of the Arbel Valley was sold to Jewish land societies. In 1910, ]Mitzpa
Mitzpa ( he, מִצְפָּה) is a moshava
A moshava ( he, מושבה, plural: ''moshavot'' , lit. ''colony'') was a form of rural Jewish settlement in Ottoman Palestine, established by the members of the Old Yishuv since late 1870s and d ...
, was established there.[
]
Jewish village
The land on which Kfar Hittin sits was purchased by the Jewish National Fund in 1904,[1910-1901](_blank)
Jewish National Fund with the help of David Chaim, an Ottoman citizen previously in the employment of Edmond James de Rothschild
Baron Abraham Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild (Hebrew: הברון אברהם אדמונד בנימין ג'יימס רוטשילד - ''HaBaron Avraham Edmond Binyamin Ya'akov Rotshield''; 19 August 1845 – 2 November 1934) was a French memb ...
.[Kfar Hittim](_blank)
Tnu'at HaAvoda Two thousand dunams of land, consisting of 400 small parcels, were purchased from the Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
village of Hittin. The first attempt to settle there in 1913 failed due to friction with the local Arabs, the shortage of water and the lack of contiguity of the land.
British Mandate
In 1924, another attempt was made to settle in Kfar Hittin. Forty families moved to the site, where they lived in wooden cabins and built a barn, a communal chicken coop, a synagogue and a water tower. In the 1929 Palestine riots the moshav was attacked by the Arabs. As economic and security problems mounted, families left until the site was abandoned completely in 1933. Another short-lived attempt to settle the land was made in 1934, but the settlers left within a short period of time.
On 7 December 1936, 11 pioneers from HaKotzer group re-established the moshav as a Tower and Stockade settlement, using the abandoned synagogue as a fort and the old milk sheds as housing. The new settlement was set up as 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 ...
''. On 19 December 1937 the moshav's guard, Shlomo Bin-Nun, was ambushed and murdered by an Arab gang.[Shlomo Bin Nun](_blank)
Izkor [The Guard S. Bin-Nun Was Found Killed Near Sejera](_blank)
HaZofe, 21.12.1937, Historical Jewish Press
During the 1940s additional families joined the moshav. Irrigation problems were solved in 1942 when piping was laid delivering water from the Sea of Galilee to the moshav. In 1944 a road connecting the moshav to Tiberias was laid. During this period the settlers started building permanent housing using basalt
Basalt (; ) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90 ...
bricks and developed the moshav economy by building textile factory, dairy farm, garage, carpentry shop and bakery.
State of Israel
After the Israeli Declaration of Independence, the moshav continued to develop economically, expanding the textile factory and by building an apiary
An apiary (also known as a bee yard) is a location where beehives of honey bees are kept. Apiaries come in many sizes and can be rural or urban depending on the honey production operation. Furthermore, an apiary may refer to a hobbyist's hives ...
and a jewellery factory. However, by the 1990s the moshav was in deep debts and had to enter receivership and most of the moshav assets were either closed or leased out, and the moshav itself became a community settlement
A community settlement ( he, יישוב קהילתי, ''Yishuv Kehilati'') is a type of village in Israel and the West Bank. While in an ordinary town anyone may buy property, in a community settlement the village's residents are organized in ...
and a new neighborhood was built to the north of the old moshav. Plans to build a golf court and a luxury hotel in the moshav were made, but never materialized.[A Missed Putt: Moshe Shapira Seeks to Make Israel a Golf Empire](_blank)
Maariv, 20 January 2012
Nearby landmarks
*Horns of Hattin
The Horns of Hattin ( he, קרני חיטין, Karnei Hittin ar, قرون حطين, Qurûn Hattîn) is an extinct volcano with twin peaks overlooking the plains of Hattin in the Lower Galilee, Israel.
Kurûn Hattîn is believed to be the site ...
– an extinct volcano and the battleground of the Battle of Hattin, in which the Muslim army led by Saladin
Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shadi () ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known by the epithet Saladin,, ; ku, سهلاحهدین, ; was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from an ethnic Kurdish family, he was the first of both Egypt and ...
defeated the Crusader army in 1187, leading to the siege and defeat of the Crusaders who controlled Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
.
* Mount Arbel – a national park in the nearby moshav Arbel
Arbel ( he, אַרְבֵּל) is a moshav in northern Israel. Located on Mount Arbel next to the Sea of Galilee near Tiberias, it falls under the jurisdiction of Lower Galilee Regional Council. In its population was .
Arbel was established in ...
, containing the ruins of an ancient Jewish settlement and a synagogue and cliff dwellings on the northern side of the mount.
*Nabi Shu'ayb
Nabi Shuʿayb (also transliterated Neby Shoaib, Nabi Shuaib, or Nebi Shu'eib, meaning "the Prophet Shuaib"), known in English as Jethro's tomb, is a religious shrine west of Tiberias, in the Lower Galilee, containing the purported tomb of prophet ...
– the supposed burial site of Jethro (Yitro), a site revered by the Druze
Gallery
File:כפר חיטים - מראה.-JNF037186.jpeg, Kfar Hittim 1937
File:כפר חיטים - מראה-JNF008353.jpeg, Kfar Hittim 1940
File:בית הגנה בכפר חיטים-JNF027863.jpeg, Kfar Hittim 1940
File:כפר חיטים - מראה כללי-JNF027872.jpeg, Kfar Hittim 1944
File:הרפת בכפר חיטים-JNF027865.jpeg, Kfar Hittim 1944 (Horns of Hattin
The Horns of Hattin ( he, קרני חיטין, Karnei Hittin ar, قرون حطين, Qurûn Hattîn) is an extinct volcano with twin peaks overlooking the plains of Hattin in the Lower Galilee, Israel.
Kurûn Hattîn is believed to be the site ...
visible in distance)
File:מצפה - באופק כפר חיטים-JNF034022.jpeg, Kfar Hittim 1945
File:מצפה - ברקע הכפרים- כפר חיטים, וכפר זיתים-JNF034023.jpeg, Kfar Hittim 1945
References
{{Lower Galilee Regional Council
Moshavim
Populated places in Northern District (Israel)
Populated places established in 1936
1936 establishments in Mandatory Palestine
1929 Palestine riots
Late Neolithic