Yonatan ( he, יוֹנָתָן) is an

Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli se ...

and

moshav A moshav ( he, מוֹשָׁב, plural ', lit. ''settlement, village'') is a type of Israeli town or settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists between 1904 an ...

located in the central

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 ...

. Initially 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 ...

, it underwent a privatization process to become 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 ...

. The settlement is affiliated with the

Hapoel HaMizrachi Hapoel HaMizrachi ( he, הַפּוֹעֵל הַמִּזְרָחִי, lit. '' Mizrachi Workers'') was a political party and settlement movement in Israel. It was one of the predecessors of the National Religious Party and the Jewish Home. History ...

movement, and is under the jurisdiction of

Golan Regional Council Golan Regional Council ( he, מועצה אזורית גולן, ar, مجلس الجولان الإقليمي) is a regional council that supervises regional services to Israeli settlements located on the Golan Heights. It is made up of 18 moshav ...

. In it had a population of . The international community considers Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.

Etymology

The settlement is named after Yonatan Rosenman, who was killed while operating a

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engin ...

during the

Yom Kippur War The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was an armed conflict fought from October 6 to 25, 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egy ...

.History of Yonatan
/ref>

History

The settlement was founded, together with four other settlements, during

Yitzhak Rabin Yitzhak Rabin (; he, יִצְחָק רַבִּין, ; 1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77, and from 1992 until h ...

's first term as

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

. The original founding nucleus included people from Yonatan Rosenman's

Nahal Nahal ( he, נח"ל) (acronym of ''Noar Halutzi Lohem'', lit. Fighting Pioneer Youth) is a program that combines military service with mostly social welfare and informal education projects such as youth movement activities, as well as training ...

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 ...

. Immediately after the Yom Kippur War the founders including Yonatan's brother, Didi, decided to name a settlement after him and to start an agricultural community in the Golan Heights. In 1975 the settlement was started temporarily in the area of the settlement kibbutz Merom Golan, and about a year later it moved to Tel Farj. Only in 1978 did it move to its present-day location.

Landmine incident

In May 2013, a mine exploded during a mine-clearing exercise close to Moshav Yonatan. The explosion killed a newly recruited IDF soldier in the Engineering Corps.

Geography

The present-day location is

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

, near Gilgal Refaim and some springs and tributaries. It is about west of the Israel-Syria border, and a few km southwest of Keshet, which is also a moshav shitufi of the

movement. It is about a 12-minute drive to Katsrin, 20 minutes to the Kinneret, half an hour from

Hatzor Hatzor ( he, חָצוֹר), officially Hatzor Ashdod, is a kibbutz in southern Israel. Located near Ashdod, it falls under the jurisdiction of Be'er Tuvia Regional Council. In it had a population of . Etymology The kibbutz is named after a b ...

, 45 minute drive to the holy cities 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 Fo ...

and Tsfat, and about 50 minutes from Carmiel.

Population

Residents of the settlement are members 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 ...

. About 350 people live there, including 75 families and 210 children as of 2007. There is a significant English speaking population on the Moshav as well.

Community

Community life on the moshav is very active, with emphasis on Jewish Orthodox and Zionist life style. A wide range of professionals live on Yonatan. There is a pediatrician, a dentist, a general practitioner, a university lecturer, a landscape architect, rabbinical scholars, teachers, electricians, high tech people, a plumber, and a policeman. For children there are Talmud Torah classes and gymboree. For adults: various

shiurim Shiur (, , lit. ''amount'', pl. shiurim ) is a lecture on any Torah topic, such as Gemara, Mishnah, Halakha (Jewish law), Tanakh (Bible), etc. History The Hebrew term שיעור ("designated amount") came to refer to a portion of Ju ...

given both by the Rabbi and other members of the community, and the culture committee organizes parties, holiday activities, and women's evenings. There is a grocery store, a health clinic, a secretarial office which provides postal services, a mikva, a library, and a gas station on the moshav.

Economy

The economy is based on apple and plum

orchards An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit- or nut-producing trees which are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of larg ...

and

viniculture Viticulture (from the Latin word for ''vine'') or winegrowing (wine growing) is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, ra ...

. Yonatan also has

mango A mango is an edible stone fruit produced by the tropical tree ''Mangifera indica''. It is believed to have originated in the region between northwestern Myanmar, Bangladesh, and northeastern India. ''M. indica'' has been cultivated in South a ...

, pears, and

passiflora ''Passiflora'', known also as the passion flowers or passion vines, is a genus of about 550 species of flowering plants, the type genus of the family Passifloraceae. They are mostly tendril-bearing vines, with some being shrubs or trees. They ...

orchards in the Beit Tzida Valley and field crops include

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...

corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

, and

tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...

es for industry. The community has areas for

pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or swine ...

chicken coop Poultry farming is the form of animal husbandry which raises domesticated birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese to produce meat or eggs for food. Poultry – mostly chickens – are farmed in great numbers. More than 60 billion chicke ...

s which markets 600,000 chickens a year, and the second-largest dairy herd in Israel (as of 2007), whose milk is delivered to

Tnuva Tnuva, or Tenuvah, ( he, תנובה, ''fruit'' or ''produce'') is an Israeli food creation and marketing company. The company holds in Israel a significant market share in the field of drinking milk production, dairy products and its marketing. I ...

, a vineyard which supplies grapes to the Golan Heights winery. Yonatan also partners with the resort village Kinar on the shore of the

Sea of Galilee 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 ...

References

External links

Official website
{{Golan Regional Council Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights Golan Regional Council Moshavim Populated places in Northern District (Israel) Populated places established in 1975 1975 establishments in the Israeli Military Governorate