Beit Berl ( he, בֵּית בֶּרְל, , Berl House) is an institutional settlement in Israel. Located on the outskirts of

Kfar Saba Kfar Saba ( he, כְּפַר סָבָא), officially Kefar Sava, is a city in the Sharon region, of the Central District of Israel. In 2019 it had a population of 110,456, making it the 16th-largest city in Israel. The population of Kfar Saba ...

, the village falls under the jurisdiction of

Drom HaSharon Regional Council The Drom HaSharon Regional Council ( he, מוֹעָצָה אֲזוֹרִית דְּרוֹם הַשָׁרוֹן, translit. ''Mo'atza Azorit Drom HaSharon'', ''lit.'' Southern Sharon Regional Council) is a regional council in the Sharon region in c ...

and is the location of

Beit Berl College Beit Berl College is a multi-disciplinary academic college for higher education located in Beit Berl in the Sharon region of Israel. It is one of the oldest colleges in Israel. The college grants undergraduate degrees (B.Ed and B.Ed.F.A.) and g ...

, which has around 7,000 students. In it had a permanent population of .

History

Before the 20^th century the area formed part of the Forest of Sharon. It was an open

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

dominated by Mount Tabor Oak, which extended from

Kfar Yona Kfar Yona ( he, כְּפַר יוֹנָה, lit=Yona's Village) is a city in the Sharon subdistrict in the Central District of Israel. It is about 7 km east of Netanya. With a jurisdiction of 11,017 dunams (~11 km²). in it had a populat ...

in the north to

Ra'anana Ra'anana ( he, רַעֲנָנָּה, lit. "Fresh") is a city in the southern Sharon Plain of the Central District of Israel. It was founded in 1922 as an American-Jewish settlement, 1 km south of the village of Tabsur, where an important ...

in the south. The local Arab inhabitants traditionally used the area for pasture, firewood and intermittent cultivation. The intensification of settlement and agriculture in the

coastal plain A coastal plain is flat, low-lying land adjacent to a sea coast. A fall line commonly marks the border between a coastal plain and a piedmont area. Some of the largest coastal plains are in Alaska and the southeastern United States. The Gulf Co ...

during the 19^th century led to deforestation and subsequent environmental degradation. Beit Berl was named after

Berl Katznelson , birth_date = , birth_place = Babruysk, Russian Empire (now Belarus) , death_date = , death_place = Jerusalem , spouse = , partner = , party = Mapai , children = , kno ...

, the spiritual leader of the Labor movement in

Mandate Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 i ...

. The cornerstone was laid on 21 August 1946. It was used as an area base for the

Haganah Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the I ...

forces, and later by the

Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the Israel, State of Israel. It consists of three servic ...

. It was built on the site of the Qalmaniya estate founded by Moshe Gredinger, a British businessman, who visited Palestine in April 1926. In 1927, he purchased land for the establishment of a large plantation north of

. He named the estate for his father, Kalman Gredinger. The farm, which grew citrus and then established a dairy barn, was not successful. In 1945, Gredinger wrote to

Avraham Harzfeld Avraham Herzfeld (also Harzfeld) ( he, אברהם הרצפלד, 5 June 1891 – 30 August 1973) was a Zionist activist and Israeli politician. Biography Avraham Herzfeld (born Avraham Postrelko) was born in Stavisht, Russian Empire (now Ukraine ...

, a founder of the

Histadrut Histadrut, or the General Organization of Workers in Israel, originally ( he, ההסתדרות הכללית של העובדים בארץ ישראל, ''HaHistadrut HaKlalit shel HaOvdim B'Eretz Yisrael''), is Israel's national trade union center ...

Labor Federation in Palestine, who proposed establishing a training institute there commemorating Berl Katznelson. Tsofit 1942

References

External links

College website
{{Authority control Villages in Israel Populated places in Central District (Israel) 1946 establishments in Mandatory Palestine