Kalya () is an

Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Israeli Jews, Jewish identity or ethni ...

organized as a

kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

in the

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

. It was originally established in 1929 but was occupied and destroyed by the Jordanians in 1948; it was later rebuilt in 1968 after the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...

. Located on the northern shore of the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea (; or ; ), also known by #Names, other names, is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east, the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west and Israel to the southwest. It lies in the endorheic basin of the Jordan Rift Valle ...

, 360 meters below sea level,The Farkashes of Kibbutz Kalya
/ref> it falls under the jurisdiction of Megilot Regional Council. In it had a population of . The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.

Etymology

The name ''Kalya'' is derived from ''kalium'', the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

name for

potassium Potassium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol K (from Neo-Latin ) and atomic number19. It is a silvery white metal that is soft enough to easily cut with a knife. Potassium metal reacts rapidly with atmospheric oxygen to ...

, a chemical found in abundance in the region. Kalya is also a Hebrew acronym for "קם לתחייה ים המוות" (''Kam Litkhiya Yam HaMavet''), literally, the Dead Sea has returned to life.

History

The kibbutz was first established during the British Mandate era.

Moshe Novomeysky Moshe Novomeysky (, ; 25 November 1873 – 27 March 1961) was an Israeli businessman and mining engineer. He was an early developer of the Palestine Potash Company, precursor to the Dead Sea Works. Biography Mikhail (Moses) Novomeysky was born in ...

, a Jewish engineer from Siberia, won the British government tender for

potash Potash ( ) includes various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water- soluble form.

mining on the Dead Sea's northern shore, the marshland surrounding the plant was drained and housing was built to accommodate employees of the Palestine Potash Company. The company, chartered in 1929, set up its first plant on the north shore of the Dead Sea at Kalya and produced potash, or potassium chloride, by solar evaporation of the brine. It employed both Arabs and Jews. Dead Sea Kallia Hotel 1934-39

Kalya was spared violence in the 1936–39 Arab revolt due to good relations with the Arabs; the plant employed many Arab laborers from

Jericho Jericho ( ; , ) is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, and the capital of the Jericho Governorate. Jericho is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It had a population of 20,907 in 2017. F ...

. Despite negotiations between the kibbutz leadership and

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

Arab Legion The Arab Legion () was the police force, then regular army, of the Emirate of Transjordan, a British protectorate, in the early part of the 20th century, and then of the Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, an independent state, with a final Ar ...

to preserve the kibbutz under Jordanian control at the time of the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...

, the imprisonment of Jews in the Jordanian-held

Naharayim Naharayim ( literally "Two rivers"), historically the Jisr Majami area ( literally "Meeting bridge" area), is the area where the Yarmouk River flows into the Jordan River. It was the site of the "First Jordan Hydro-Electric Power House", con ...

complex and the Kfar Etzion massacre led

David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary List of national founders, national founder and first Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency ...

to call for the residents' evacuation and their consolidation in the southern Dead Sea. Residents of Kalya and nearby Beit HaArava ultimately fled by boat on 20 May 1948, and the two kibbutzim were destroyed by the Jordanians. The area remained unpopulated save a Jordanian military camp. Following Israel's occupation of the

from Jordan in the 1967

, Kalya was re-established as a paramilitary

Nahal settlement Nahal settlements () were Israeli settlements established by Israeli soldiers of Nahal in both Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories. Supporting the growth and expansion of Israeli Jews was once the main focus of Nahal troops of the Israe ...

in 1968, the first in the area. Civilians temporarily settled in the deserted Jordanian army camp in 1972 while planting the first date palms and building permanent houses. The completed homes were populated in 1974.Encyclopedia Judaica, Decenniel book, 1973-1982, "State of Israel," p.356 According to ARIJ, Israel expropriated 955 dunums of land in 1968 from the

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

village of as-Sawahira ash-Sharqiya in order to construct Kalya.

Economy

Kalya has a population of 300 and depends mainly on

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

, primarily consisting of

dairy A dairy is a place where milk is stored and where butter, cheese, and other dairy products are made, or a place where those products are sold. It may be a room, a building, or a larger establishment. In the United States, the word may also des ...

farming and raising

date palm ''Phoenix dactylifera'', commonly known as the date palm, is a flowering-plant species in the palm family Arecaceae, cultivated for its edible sweet #Fruits, fruit called dates. The species is widely cultivated across North Africa, northern A ...

s, watermelons and

cherry tomato The cherry tomato is a type of small round tomato believed to be an intermediate genetic admixture between Solanum pimpinellifolium, wild currant-type tomatoes and domesticated garden tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes range in size from a thumbtip up ...

es. The kibbutz also runs the

Israel Nature and Parks Authority The Israel Nature and Parks Authority (, ; ) is an Israeli government organization that manages nature reserves and national parks in Israel, the Golan Heights and parts of the West Bank. The organization was founded in April 1998, merging two o ...

visitor's centre of the nearby

Qumran Caves The Qumran Caves ( '; ''HaMeara Kumran'') are a series of caves, both natural and artificial, found around the archaeological site of Qumran in the Judaean Desert. It is in these caves that the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. Israel Nature a ...

, where the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of List of Hebrew Bible manuscripts, ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE). They were discovered over a period of ten years, between ...

were found. At one time, the kibbutz operated a water park. The kibbutz serves as a

rest stop A rest area is a public facility located next to a large thoroughfare such as a motorway, Limited-access road, expressway, or highway, at which drivers and passengers can rest, eat, or refuel without exiting onto secondary roads. Other names ...

between

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

and

Ein Gedi Ein Gedi (, ), also spelled En Gedi, meaning "Spring (hydrology), spring of the goat, kid", is an oasis, an Archaeological site, archeological site and a nature reserve in Israel, located west of the Dead Sea, near Masada and the Qumran Caves. ...

due to its proximity to the Beit HaArava Junction between Highway 90 and Highway 1.

Beach

A private beach run by the kibbutz is popular with Israelis, Christian pilgrims and tourists. The wooden building near the seashore where people can drink, eat and chat is rightly called ''the lowest bar in the world'' (–417), some lower of the entrance one. Since the easing of travel restrictions in the West Bank and the removal of major roadblocks, Palestinians also come to swim there. However, Palestinians were regularly barred from reaching any Dead Sea beaches for fear that Arab presence would cause loss of Jewish customers for establishments along the shore. This was enforced by the Israeli military at Beit Ha'arava checkpoint on Route 90.

References

External links

Official website
{{Megilot Israeli settlements in the West Bank Kibbutzim Kibbutz Movement Non-religious Israeli settlements Populated places established in 1929 1929 establishments in Mandatory Palestine Populated places established in 1968 1968 establishments in the Israeli Military Governorate Jewish villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War Nahal settlements