Shamir ( he, שָׁמִיר) is a
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
Upper Galilee
The Upper Galilee ( he, הגליל העליון, ''HaGalil Ha'Elyon''; ar, الجليل الأعلى, ''Al Jaleel Al A'alaa'') is a geographical-political term in use since the end of the Second Temple period. It originally referred to a mountai ...
area of
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 on the western slopes of the
Golan Heights
The Golan Heights ( ar, هَضْبَةُ الْجَوْلَانِ, Haḍbatu l-Jawlān or ; he, רמת הגולן, ), or simply the Golan, is a region in the Levant spanning about . The region defined as the Golan Heights differs between di ...
, it falls under the jurisdiction of
Upper Galilee Regional Council
The Upper Galilee Regional Council ( he, מוֹעָצָה אֲזוֹרִית הַגָּלִיל הַעֶלְיוֹן, translit. ''Mo'atza Azorit HaGalil HaElyon'') is a regional council in Israel's Upper Galilee region, bordered by the Mevo'ot HaH ...
. In it had a population of .
History
The kibbutz was established in 1944 by a small group of mainly
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
n
immigrants
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
. The first-generation settlers were members of the
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
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 ...
youth movement
Hashomer Hatzair
Hashomer Hatzair ( he, הַשׁוֹמֵר הַצָעִיר, , ''The Young Guard'') is a Labor Zionist, secular Jewish youth movement founded in 1913 in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary, and it was also the name of the group ...
. Following 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 ...
the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
-established border between Israel and
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
was drawn to run only a few hundred yards east of the kibbutz.
On Thursday 13 June 1974, four PF-GC terrorists infiltrated the Lebanon-Israel border and invaded the kibbutz. They entered one of the buildings shooting a pregnant woman Edna Mor and another woman Shoshana Galili. Edna left behind a child and husband who moved out of the kibbutz shortly after. The terrorists continued shooting at random. Judith Sinton, a volunteer from New Zealand, on her way back to the apiary after breakfast, was shot and killed by one of the terrorists. The members of the kibbutz seized their weapons and ran in the direction from where gunfire was heard. In the gun battle that followed, all four terrorists were killed. The terrorists' aim was to take Israeli hostages in return for 100 jailed terrorists. Their written message ends: "We love to die, as you love to live." The artist
Avraham Eilat who was at that time a member of the kibbutz documented the event.
Economy
As of 2006, Shamir was one of the most prosperous kibbutzim in Israel, producing honey, toiletries, and advanced optical products. The optical enterprise,
Shamir Optical Industry, was previously a fully incorporated stock company, quoted on
NASDAQ
The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...
. In 2011
Essilor
Essilor International is a French-based international ophthalmic optics company that designs, manufactures and markets lenses to correct or protect eyesight. Its headquarters is in Charenton-le-Pont (near Paris), France.
It is the world's larg ...
became a 50% shareholder and the company went private.
The kibbutz also earns money from tourism; it offers views of
Mount Hermon
Mount Hermon ( ar, جبل الشيخ or جبل حرمون / ALA-LC: ''Jabal al-Shaykh'' ("Mountain of the Sheikh") or ''Jabal Haramun''; he, הַר חֶרְמוֹן, ''Har Hermon'') is a mountain cluster constituting the southern end of the ...
to the north and the
Hula Valley
The Hula Valley ( he, עמק החולה, translit. ''Emek Ha-Ḥula''; also transliterated as Huleh Valley, ar, سهل الحولة) is an agricultural region in northern Israel with abundant fresh water, which used to be Lake Hula, prior t ...
below the kibbutz. A relatively rare phenomenon can be observed from Shamir—a "sunrise in the west." As the kibbutz is nested in the steeply-rising western slopes of the Golan, when the sun rises, its first rays at daybreak illuminate the peaks of the Ramim mountain range across the valley to the west of Shamir. As the sun climbs progressively higher, more of Ramim is bathed in sunshine, which can then be observed progressing from west to east, down the slopes of Ramim, across the valley and up the slopes of the Golan before reaching the kibbutz.
Landmarks
Of notable interest are some 3rd century border stones with
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
inscriptions. Surrounding the kibbutz is a field of more than 400
dolmen
A dolmen () or portal tomb is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the early Neolithic (40003000 BCE) and were somet ...
s, dated to the
Bronze Age IB (c. 2350–2000 BCE). The largest of the dolmens has a basalt capstone of 50 tons which has rock art on its underside—the only art known from dolmens in the southern Levant. Its excavators judge that the scale of the dolmen field and size of the dolmens indicate a governmental system more complex than that usually assigned to the period.
Notable people
*
Sara Braverman
*
Uzi Arad
References
External links
Official website
{{Authority control
Kibbutzim
Kibbutz Movement
Populated places established in 1944
Populated places in Northern District (Israel)
Romanian-Jewish culture in Israel
1944 establishments in Mandatory Palestine