Kfar Yehezkel ( he, כְּפַר יְחֶזְקֵאל, ''lit.'' Yehezkel Village) is a moshav ovdim in northern

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

Jezreel Valley The Jezreel Valley (from the he, עמק יזרעאל, translit. ''ʿĒmeq Yīzrəʿēʿl''), or Marj Ibn Amir ( ar, مرج ابن عامر), also known as the Valley of Megiddo, is a large fertile plain and inland valley in the Northern Distr ...

, six kilometres southeast of

Afula Afula ( he, עפולה Arabic: العفولة) is a city in the Northern District of Israel, often known as the "Capital of the Valley" due to its strategic location in the Jezreel Valley. As of , the city had a population of . Afula's ancient ...

, it falls under the jurisdiction of

Gilboa Regional Council Gilboa Regional Council ( he, מועצה אזורית הגלבוע, ''Mo'atza Azorit (ha)Gilbo'a'') is a regional council in northern Israel, located on the slopes of the Gilboa mountain range. There are more than 22,000 residents in 38 settlement ...

. In the moshav had a population of .

History

Kfar Yehezkel was founded on 16 December 1921 by pioneers of the

Second Aliyah The Second Aliyah ( he, העלייה השנייה, ''HaAliyah HaShniya'') was an aliyah (Jewish emigration to Palestine) that took place between 1904 and 1914, during which approximately 35,000 Jews immigrated into Ottoman-ruled Palestine, mos ...

.Family Affair: The Broidas, Kfar Yehezkel
Haaretz, 16 April 2009 Settlers from

Tel Hai Tel Hai ( he, תֵּל חַי [] "Hill of Life") is a name of the former Jewish settlement in northern Galilee, the site of an early battle between Jews and Arabs heralding the growing civil conflict, and of a monument, tourist attraction, and a c ...

and

Hamara Hamara ( so, Xamara) is a town in the southwestern Gedo region of Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republi ...

, which was evacuated because of Arab attacks from Lebanon, were also among the founding members. It was the second ''moshav ovdim'' in Palestine, after

Nahalal Nahalal ( he, נַהֲלָל) is a moshav in northern Israel. Covering 8.5 square kilometers, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Jezreel Valley Regional Council. In it had a population of . Nahalal is best known for its general layout, as ...

. Originally called Ayn Tib'un after the nearby spring, the early development of the moshav was funded by the partners of E & J S Sykes, a firm of international cotton, tea & opium merchants based in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

and

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...

. E & J S Sykes (established in 1894) was a partnership of four Baghdadi brothers: Ezra Sassoon Sehayik (b. 1860, later known as Ezra Sassoon), Joseph Sassoon Sehayik (b. 1863, from 1888 known as Joseph Sassoon Sykes, naturalised British 1904), Moshi Sassoon Sehayik (b. 1875, later known as Moshi Sassoon Schayek), and Heskel Sassoon Sehayik (b. 1883, naturalised British 1907). In 1910, Heskel Sehayik returned from Manchester to Baghdad and shortly thereafter was drowned whilst swimming in the

Tigris River The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the P ...

. The proceeds of his life insurance policy were invested in the family business, and in 1923 the three surviving brothers made a substantial donation to the moshav in memory of Heskel, after whom the moshav was renamed. The driver of the moshav was injured in 1936 during a spate of Arab violence. File:כפר יחזקאל - מראה חלק מהישוב.-JNF043639.jpeg, Kfar Yehezkel 1926 File:Keren Hayesod Album, Kfar Yehezkel ploughing (cropped).jpg, Deep ploughing in Kfar Yehezkel, 1925 -1937 File:Keren Hayesod Album, Kfar Yehezkel Entrance (cropped).jpg, The entrance to Kfar Yehezkel, 1925 -1937 File:Zoltan Kluger. Kfar Jehezkel.jpg, Kfar Yehezkel, 1937-1938 File:ההכנות בכפר יחזקאל לקראת העלייה לבני ברית-JNF008250.jpeg, Kfar Yehezkel 1937 File:כפר יחזקאל - מראה כללי, צילום מן האויר.-JNF030646.jpeg, Kfar Yehezkel 1939 File:כפר יחזקאל - מראה כללי-JNF007847.jpeg, Kfar Yehezkel 1945

Architectural master plan

Kfar Yehezkel's general layout was designed by

Richard Kauffmann Richard Kauffmann (1887–1958) was a German-Jewish architect who migrated to Palestine in 1920. His architecture was influenced by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a proponent of the International Style, and was applied to the local landscape, layin ...

at about the same time as he drew the plans for the better-known Nahalal settlement. Similarly, it grouped the public buildings at the centre with several residential buildings surrounding them along an inner ring road, with individual plots of agricultural land radiating outwards between straight roads, and additional housing along these roads. The geometrical symmetry of the initial settlement was less stringent than was the case with Nahalal, also due to the semicircular shape of the plateau at the centre of the village.Richard Kauffmann
Die Bebauungsplaene der Kleinsiedlungen Kfar-Nahalal und Kfar-Jecheskiel
('The construction plans for the agricultural small housing estates Kfar Nahalal and Kfar Yehezkel, Kfar Jecheskiel'), published by the Department for Agricultural Colonization of the Zionist Executive, Jerusalem (1923), in German.

Notable residents

Igal Talmi Igal Talmi (Hebrew: יגאל תלמי) (born January 31, 1925) is an Israeli nuclear physicist. Biography Igal Talmi was born in 1925 in Kiev, Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. His family immigrated to Mandate Palestine later that year an ...

(born 1925), nuclear physicist * Uzi Feinerman (1924-1975), politician, Member of the Knesset

History

Architectural master plan

Notable residents

References

Further reading