Be'eri () is 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 southern

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. Located in the north-western

Negev The Negev ( ; ) or Naqab (), is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort town, resort city ...

desert near the eastern border with the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...

, it falls under the jurisdiction of

Eshkol Regional Council Eshkol Regional Council (, ''Mo'atza Ezorit Eshkol'') is a regional council in the north-western Negev, in Israel's Southern District. The regional council's territory lies midway between Ashkelon and Beersheba, bounded on the west by the Gaza St ...

. In it had a population of . During the massacre in Be'eri by Hamas in the October 7 attack, over 130 people were killed. The superfood Mankai was developed by the kibbutz.

History

Kibbutz Be'eri was established on 6 October 1946 as one of the

11 points in the Negev 11 points in the Negev ( or , ''Achat-Esre HaNekudot'') refers to a Jewish Agency plan to establish eleven settlements in the Negev in 1946 prior to the partition of Palestine and the establishment of the State of Israel. History A plan to est ...

. It was located near Wadi Nahabir, a few kilometres south of Be'erot Yitzhak. Its founders were members of the HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed movement, who had been preparing in

Maoz Haim Maoz Haim () is a kibbutz in Israel. It is located adjacent to the Jordan River in the Beit She'an valley and falls under the jurisdiction of Valley of Springs Regional Council. In it had a population of . Aside from agriculture, the kibbutz als ...

, as well as some Hebrew scouts and a group of

Iraqi Jews The history of the Jews in Iraq (, ', ; , ) is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity . Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and most historically significant Jewish communities. The Jewish community in Mesopotamia, kn ...

who had survived the

Farhud The () was a pogrom carried out against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Kingdom of Iraq, Iraq, on 1–2 June 1941 (coinciding with the Jewish holiday of Shavuot), immediately following the British victory in the Anglo-Iraqi War. The riots oc ...

and trekked across the desert to

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...

in 1947. It was named after

Berl Katznelson Berl Katznelson (; 25 January 1887 – 12 August 1944) was one of the intellectual founders of Labor Zionism and was instrumental to the Israeli Declaration of Independence, establishment of the modern state of Israel. He was also the editor of ' ...

, as Be'eri (Beeri) (a biblical name) was his

pen name A pen name or nom-de-plume is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen name may be used to make the author's na ...

. In 1947 Be'eri had a population of over 150. The early settlers engaged in

land reclamation Land reclamation, often known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new Terrestrial ecoregion, land from oceans, list of seas, seas, Stream bed, riverbeds or lake ...

and tree planting. The

Jewish National Fund The Jewish National Fund (JNF; , ''Keren Kayemet LeYisrael''; previously , ''Ha Fund HaLeumi'') is a non-profit organizationProfessor Alon Tal, The Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, The Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben Gurion ...

reported that for months the kibbutz was completely isolated, "but the settlers held their ground until the liberation of the Negev in October 1948." After Israeli independence, the kibbutz moved three kilometres southeast to its present location. It is considered one of Israel's wealthiest kibbutzim. During the

Second Intifada The Second Intifada (; ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against Israel and its Israeli-occupied territories, occupation from 2000. Starting as a civilian uprising in Jerusalem and October 2000 prot ...

, the kibbutz suffered from

Qassam rocket The Qassam rocket ( ; also ''Kassam'') is a simple, steel artillery rocket developed and deployed by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas. These rockets cannot be fired to target specific military objectives in or near ci ...

attacks and combat near the Israel–Gaza barrier eight kilometres away. A sulfur deposit from

Upper Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as the Upper Pleistocene from a stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of the Pleistocene Epoch with ...

sandstone was discovered in the vicinity of Kibbutz Be'eri. In 2020, the superfood Monkai was developed by the kibbutz.

Be'eri massacre

Relations between Be'eri residents and Gazans were reportedly good. Bret Stephens writes: On 7 October 2023,

Hamas The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (the Arabic acronym from ), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamism, Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has Gaza Strip under Hama ...

militants infiltrated the kibbutz, took an unknown number of Israelis hostage and killed more than 100 people in their coordinated attacks across Israel that initiated the

Gaza war The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel fought since 7 October 2023. A part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflict, Gaza–Israel conflicts dating ...

. Relatives of some of those killed have demanded a probe into the potential deaths of some of these hostages from

friendly fire In military terminology, friendly fire or fratricide is an attack by belligerent or neutral forces on friendly troops while attempting to attack enemy or hostile targets. Examples include misidentifying the target as hostile, cross-fire while ...

, including one incident in which an Israeli tank fired at a house full of hostages. One of the hostages abducted from Be'eri was killed by Hamas, along with 5 other Israeli hostages, after 330 days in captivity. In the aftermath of the massacre, the kibbutz's population was evacuated. As of December 2024, some 200 residents had returned to Be'eri while hundreds more lived elsewhere in Israel, including many at kibbutz

Hatzerim Hatzerim (, ''lit.'' Farmyards) is a kibbutz located 8 kilometers west of Beersheba in the Negev desert in Israel. It is named after the Bible (Deuteronomy 2:23), mentioning a site nearby: "the Avvites who lived in farmyards as far as Gaza". It b ...

. It is hoped that the kibbutz will be fully rebuilt by August 2026.

Economy

Unlike many kibbutzim that have undergone privatization, Kibbutz Be'eri has retained the old cooperative model. The main source of income is the Be'eri print company, which has an annual turnover of hundreds of millions of shekels. The company has expanded into package printing, online photo albums and professional marketing material for small businesses. It also owns a food tech company, Hinoman, which cultivates Mankai (''

Wolffia globosa ''Wolffia globosa'' is a species of flowering plant known by the common names Asian watermeal and duckweed. It is native to Asia and is found in parts of the Americas and Africa, where it is an introduced species. It grows in mats on the surface ...

'') using

hydroponics Hydroponics is a type of horticulture and a subset of #Passive sub-irrigation, hydroculture which involves growing plants, usually crops or medicinal plants, without soil, by using water-based mineral Plant nutrition, nutrient Solution (chemi ...

. The kibbutz grows

jojoba Jojoba (; botanical name: ''Simmondsia chinensis'')also commonly called goat nut, deer nut, pignut, wild hazel, quinine nut, coffeeberry, and gray box bushis an evergreen, dioecious shrub native to the Southwestern United States and northern M ...

and markets oil from the fruit to the cosmetics industry. Other sources of income are a boutique dairy that produces premium handmade cheese.

Landmarks

About four kilometers to the north lies the ANZAC Monument, commemorating the

ANZAC The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) was originally a First World War army corps of the British Empire under the command of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. It was formed in Egypt in December 1914, and operated during the ...

soldiers who died in the

Third Battle of Gaza The Third Battle of Gaza was fought on the night of 1–2 November 1917 between British and Ottoman forces during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of World War I and came after the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) victory at the Ba ...

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

Sports

The kibbutz's

basketball team Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

, Hapoel Be'eri, plays in

Liga Artzit Liga Artzit (, lit. ''Country League'') is the defunct third division of Israeli Football League, beneath its highest division Premier League and the second division Liga Leumit. Before being cancelled in 2009, it was run by the Israel Football A ...

Notable people

Sofie Berzon MacKie Sofie Berzon MacKie (; born January 29, 1984) is an Israeli visual artist, curator and director of the Be'eri Contemporary Art Gallery. Biography Berzon MacKie was born in Kibbutz Be'eri to Yishai Admati, who was a printer in the Be'eri printi ...

(born January 1984) visual artist, curator and director of the Be'eri Contemporary Art Gallery

Gallery

File:Be'eri 1948.jpg, Kibbutz Be'eri in 1948 File:Be'eri.jpg,

Yiftach Brigade The 11th Brigade (also known as the Yiftach Brigade) is a reserves unit in the Israel Defense Forces, composed mainly of fighters that completed their compulsory service in the Egoz Unit, Unit 621 – 'Egoz'. History In the 1948 Arab–Israeli ...

position close to Be'eri in 1948 File:Be'eri i.jpg, Members of

"D" company assembled at Be'eri in 1948 File:Be'eri ii.jpg, Kibbutz Be'eri after the fighting in 1948 File:באריהישנה 0642.JPG, Old water tower and security fort File:PikiWiki Israel 7498 byzantine water cisterns.jpg, Byzantine water cisterns File:94074 sulfur mines near bari PikiWiki Israel.jpg, Sulfur mines

References

External links

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Be'eri
WiKibbutz
One of the Most Beautiful Parts of Israel, Before All Hell Broke Loose

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...

Kibbutz near Gaza celebrates delayed bar, bat mitzvahs

Be'eri Forest - Wandering among the anemones
{{Authority control Kibbutzim Kibbutz Movement Populated places established in 1946 Jewish villages in Mandatory Palestine Populated places in Southern District (Israel) 1946 establishments in Mandatory Palestine