Beit Eshel () was a Jewish settlement established in the

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 in

Mandate Palestine The Mandate for Palestine was a League of Nations mandate for British administration of the territories of Palestine and Transjordanwhich had been part of the Ottoman Empire for four centuriesfollowing the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in Wo ...

in 1943 as one of the " three lookouts" in the northern Negev, alongside Revivim and Gvulot. It was located two kilometres southeast of

Beersheba Beersheba ( / ; ), officially Be'er-Sheva, is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the centre of the fourth-most populous metropolitan area in Israel, the eighth-most p ...

Name

According to 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 ...

, the name means ''"House of the Tamarisk"'' and refers to the tamarisks planted by the patriarch

Abraham Abraham (originally Abram) is the common Hebrews, Hebrew Patriarchs (Bible), patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father who began the Covenant (biblical), covenanta ...

History

The pioneers of Beit Eshel were

Holocaust survivors Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universall ...

from

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

, and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. As one of three outposts, the residents of Beit Eshel were tasked with checking the viability of

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 ...

in the area based on climate analysis, availability of water, etc. In 1947 the village had a population of over 100. In May 1948, when

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

invaded Israel in the early stages 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 ...

, Beit Eshel was cut off from Jewish territory and was shelled heavily by the Egyptians. According to the

Haganah Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...

, this attack was repulsed. 8 men and women were killed, many buildings destroyed or damaged, and the Egyptians continued to fire at the village sporadically. In October 1948, with the IDF capture of the city of Beersheba, Beit Eshel was liberated. However, the settlers of Beit Eshel couldn't cope with the large scale destruction, decided to abandon the settlement and to establish a new

moshav A moshav (, plural ', "settlement, village") is a type of Israeli village or town or Jewish settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists between 1904 and 1 ...

named

HaYogev HaYogev () is a moshav in northern Israel. Located around seven kilometres west of Afula, it falls under the jurisdiction of Jezreel Valley Regional Council. In it had a population of . Etymology The name means "The Farmer". It consists of the ...

in the

Jezreel Valley The Jezreel Valley (from the ), or Marj Ibn Amir (), also known as the Valley of Megiddo, is a large fertile plain and inland valley in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. It is bordered to the north by the highlands o ...

. File:מראה בבית-אשל בנגב-JNF012095.jpeg, Beit Eshel 1945 File:Beit Eshel ii.jpg, Beit Eshel after recapture by the Israeli army. 1948

Heritage site

In 1960, a group of Beersheva residents established a volunteer society to preserve Beit Eshel as a national heritage site.

Archaeology

Excavations at Beit Eshel in 2003 by a joint team of the

Israel Antiquities Authority The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA, ; , before 1990, the Israel Department of Antiquities) is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of Antiquities. The IAA regulates excavation and conservatio ...

and the Archaeological Division of Ben Gurion University of the Negev unearthed

Ghassulian Ghassulian refers to a culture and an archaeological stage dating to the Middle and Late Chalcolithic Period in the Southern Levant (c. 4400 – c. 3500 BC). Its type-site, Teleilat el-Ghassul, is located in the eastern Jordan Valley near ...

flint sickle blades from the fifth millennium BCE, suggesting that the site was a

(

Chalcolithic The Chalcolithic ( ) (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic) was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. It followed the Neolithic and preceded the Bronze Age. It occurred at different periods in di ...

) flint workshop.The Ghassulian sickle blades workshop of Beit Eshel, Beer Sheva, Israel
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References

{{Authority control Populated places established in 1943 Geography of Southern District (Israel) Jewish villages in Mandatory Palestine Jewish villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War Former kibbutzim 1943 establishments in Mandatory Palestine 1948 disestablishments in Mandatory Palestine

Name

History

Heritage site

Archaeology

See also

References