Nahalal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nahalal (Hebrew: נהלל), is a moshav in Israel's Jezreel Valley. Founded in 1921, it was the first moshav ovdim.
Contents |
[edit] History
The name, Nahalal, is derived from the biblical town in the of the land of the Tribe of Zebulun (of the twelve tribes of Israel), and also a Levite city (Joshua 21: 35). Nahalal did not yield to the conquering Israelites initially, due to its strong fortifications, but they did pay taxes to them.
Archaeological findings have identified remains from the Israelite (Iron) period.
The Jewish Roman town was called "Mahalul". It flourished from the commercially strategic location during the Roman/Byzantine times (Mishna and Talmud). It is mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud (Megilla page 2 , 2 1:1), and listed among the walled cities from the period of Joshua.
Over time, the name Nahalal morphed into Mahlul, the name of a nearby Arab village, established in the Ottoman period.
Nahalal's founders immigrated to Palestine from Eastern Europe in what is known as the second immigration and third immigration between the years 1904-1914 (at the end of the Ottoman rule).
The first residents were veteran pioneers of the second immigration, some of whom had been members of the first kibbutz, Degania.
After working in farming communities for a decade, the founders dreamt of establishing a communal farming community similar to a kibbutz, but they wanted to keep their individual family structure (kibbutzim had communal dining and children slept in separate housing).
The Nahalal pioneers first came to its location September 11, 1921, and viewed from the hill , the land that had been given to them by the Jewish National Fund.
The small rivulets created marshes, which attracted Anopheles mosquitoes that spreads malaria. Heeding the warnings of the experts among them, like Dr. Hillel Yafe, an expert on the war against malaria, they temporarily settled on the hill. Later, the founders came down from the hill and divided the land.
The village layout in Nahalal, devised by architect Richard Kauffman, became the pattern for many of the moshavim established before 1948; it is based on concentric circles, with the public buildings (school, administrative and cultural offices, cooperative shops and warehouses) in the center, the homesteads in the innermost circle, the farm buildings in the next, and beyond those, ever-widening circles of gardens and fields. initially to 80 equal parts , 75 parts to the members and 5 parts for the agricultural school(the first 2 parts and the last 3 parts contain the agricultural school). This equal parcelling of the land became the trademark geometric shape of Nahalal.
[edit] Education
In 1929, a Girls' Agricultural Training Farm was established at Nahalal by Hana Meizel of WIZO (Women's International Zionist Organization), and in the 1940s it became a coeducational farming school of the Youth Aliyah movement.
[edit] Prominent Residents
- Colonel Moshe "Muki" Betser
- Moshe Dayan
- Assi Dayan
- Shmuel Dayan
- Yael Dayan,
- Yehonatan Geffen
- General Moshe Peled
- Amir Pnueli
- Ilan Ramon
- Nissan Rilov
- Meir Shalev
- Hannah Szenes
[edit] External links
- Degania & Nahalal, UNESCO World Heritage Sites
- [1] Nahalal geometric shape
- [2] Nahalal site (Hebrew)
- Nahalal
- [3] (Hebrew)
Template:Jezreel Valley Regional Council
