Ben Shemen ( he, בֶּן שֶׁמֶן, ''lit.'' very fruitful) is a

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 ...

in central

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 around four kilometres east of Lod, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hevel Modi'in Regional Council. In it had a population of .

Etymology

The village's name is taken from

Isaiah Isaiah ( or ; he, , ''Yəšaʿyāhū'', "God is Salvation"), also known as Isaias, was the 8th-century BC Israelite prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named. Within the text of the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah himself is referred to as "the ...

5:1:

Let me sing of my well-beloved, a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill.

and also reflects the JNF's planting of olive trees in this area.

History

The moshav was founded in 1905 on the land of the former Arab estate of Bayt ‘Arīf. It and was one of the first villages established on

Jewish National Fund Jewish National Fund ( he, קֶרֶן קַיֶּימֶת לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, ''Keren Kayemet LeYisrael'', previously , ''Ha Fund HaLeumi'') was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Syria (later Mandatory Palestine, and subsequ ...

land. The first Jewish National Fund forest is also located in Ben Shemen. In 1910 Ben Shemen was the site of the Bezalel Artists' Colony (1910), a predecessor to the Ben Shemen youth village. According to a

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses inc ...

conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, Ben Shemen had a population of 90 Jews. Which had increased in the 1931 census to 353 residents, in 30 houses.Mills, 1932, p
19
/ref> In 1923 it was split in two, with a group of trial farms eventually becoming a separate moshav,

Kerem Ben Shemen Kerem Ben Shemen ( he, כֶּרֶם בֶּן שֶׁמֶן, ''lit.'' very fruitful vineyard), also known as Ben Shemen-Shikhun ( he, בן שמן-שיכון, lit. ''Ben Shemen Housing Complex'') is a moshav in central Israel. Located near Lod, i ...

. The

Ben Shemen Youth Village Ben Shemen Youth Village ( he, כפר הנוער בן שמן, ''Kfar HaNo'ar Ben Shemen'') is a youth village and agricultural boarding school in central Israel. Located near Ben Shemen and Ginaton, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hevel Modi' ...

was established adjacent to the moshav in 1927 and is today a large

agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peopl ...

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of " room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exte ...

. In 1945, the lands of Ben Shemen amounted to 2,176 dunams, of which 607 dunams were devoted to

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 lar ...

, 947 dunams to

field crop Produce is a generalized term for many farm-produced crops, including fruits and vegetables (grains, oats, etc. are also sometimes considered ''produce''). More specifically, the term ''produce'' often implies that the products are fresh an ...

s, one dunam for

bananas A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

, and 594 dunams were left uncultivated. According to Marom, "Citrus growing remained undeveloped in Ben Shemen, with the youth village specializing in orchards and field crops". During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Ben Shemen was the site of a British search for weapons. Similar searches were a common British response to Jewish opposition to the

White Paper of 1939 The White Paper of 1939Occasionally also known as the MacDonald White Paper (e.g. Caplan, 2015, p.117) after Malcolm MacDonald, the British Colonial Secretary, who presided over its creation. was a policy paper issued by the British government ...

. In 1947 Ben Shemen had a population of 75. The village experienced extensive damage during the early days of 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 ...

and had to be reconstructed. Immigrants from

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 ...

joined the moshav in 1952. Some houses were built by

Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design ( he, בצלאל, אקדמיה לאמנות ועיצוב) is a public college of design and art located in Jerusalem. Established in 1906 by Jewish painter and sculptor Boris Schatz, Bezalel is Israel's oldes ...

founder Boris Schatz. File:Al-Haditha 1942.jpg, Ben Shemen 1942 1:20,000 File:Beit Nabala 1945.jpg, Ben Shemen 1945 1:250,000 File:Lydda and Ramla area - 9 July 1948.PNG, Depopulated villages in the Ramle Subdistrict File:בן שמן - מראה כללי.-JNF043819.jpeg, Ben Shemen 1927 File:בן שמן - מראה-JNF026408.jpeg, Ben Shemen 1928 File:Ben Shemen ii.jpg, Ben Shemen 1948. Photograph from

Palmach The Palmach (Hebrew: , acronym for , ''Plugot Maḥatz'', "Strike Companies") was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv (Jewish community) during the period of the British Mandate for Palestine. The Palmach ...

archive File:Ben Shemen iii.jpg, Ben Shemen. 1948. Used as a base by the

Yiftach Brigade The Yiftach Brigade (also known as the Yiftah Brigade, the 11th Brigade in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War) was an Israeli infantry brigade. It included two Palmach battalions (the 1st and 7th), and later also the 2nd, which was transferred from the ...

File:Ben Shemen i.jpg, Ben Shemen 1948. Dining room File:Ben Shemen iv.jpg, Ben Shemen. Harvest File:Ben Shemen v.jpg, Ben Shemen. Processing wool File:Ben Shemen vi.jpg, Ben Shemen being evacuated in early 1948

Archaeology

During road-work near Ben Shemen in 1975, a burial cave containing three ossuaries was found. An

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated i ...

funerary inscription on one of them mentions "Levi son of Menashe" and is dated to the late

Second Temple period The Second Temple period in Jewish history lasted approximately 600 years (516 BCE - 70 CE), during which the Second Temple existed. It started with the return to Zion and the construction of the Second Temple, while it ended with the First Je ...

, probably during the first century BCE or CE. Additionally, a boulder that collapsed from the cave wall had a

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 ...

funerary inscription written in red, which according to its style, was probably inscribed during the 2nd or 3rd centuries CE. Di Segni suggests that the Hebrew name "''Yo'ezer''" on the inscription indicates that the area had not been completely cleared of Jews after the Jewish-Roman Wars. Jews who did not participate in the revolt may have survived in the area, converting to

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...

and preserving the family name for generations to come. Others have argued that, despite its rarity, a Christian usage of an

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

name doesn't require additional explanation.

Notable residents

Benjamin Elazari Volcani Benjamin Elazari Volcani (Hebrew: בנימין אלעזרי-וולקני, born 4 January 1915, died 1 February 1999) was an Israeli microbiologist who discovered life in the Dead Sea and pioneered biological silicon research at Scripps Instituti ...

Aharon Yadlin Aharon Yadlin (; 17 April 1926 – 12 August 2022) was an Israeli educator and politician. Biography Aharon Yadlin was born in Tel Aviv and grew up in moshav Ben Shemen and Rehovot during the Mandate era. He was active in the local scouting mo ...

Shimon Peres Shimon Peres (; he, שמעון פרס ; born Szymon Perski; 2 August 1923 – 28 September 2016) was an Israeli politician who served as the eighth prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and from 1995 to 1996 and as the ninth president of ...

References

External links