Beit Guvrin (, 'lit. 'House of Men' in

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

) 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 the Lakhish region, west of the ancient city of Beit Guvrin, for which it is named. Located 14 kilometres east of

Kiryat Gat Kiryat Gat () also spelled Qiryat Gat, is a city in the Southern District of Israel. It lies south of Tel Aviv, north of Beersheba, and west southwest of Jerusalem. In it had a population of . The city hosts one of the most advanced semicondu ...

, it falls under the jurisdiction of

Yoav Regional Council Yoav Regional Council (, ''Mo'atza Azorit Yoav'') is a regional council in the Southern District of Israel. It is located near the cities of Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Malakhi and Ashkelon. It was founded in 1952, covering an area of 230,000 dunams (23 ...

. In it had a population of .

History

Kibbutz Beit Guvrin was founded in 1949, on the eve of

Shavuot (, from ), or (, in some Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazi usage), is a Jewish holidays, Jewish holiday, one of the biblically ordained Three Pilgrimage Festivals. It occurs on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan; in the 21st century, it may ...

, by former

Palmach The Palmach (Hebrew: , acronym for , ''Plugot Maḥatz'', "Strike Phalanges/Companies") was the elite combined strike forces and sayeret unit of the Haganah, the paramilitary organization of the Yishuv (Jewish community) during the period of th ...

members after the Palestinian Arab residents of

Bayt Jibrin Bayt Jibrin or Beit Jibrin ( lit. 'House of the Powerful') was an Arab village in the Hebron Subdistrict of British Mandatory Palestine, in what is today the State of Israel, which was depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. It was ...

fled the military assault by Jewish forces during 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 first residents were members of the "Yetzivim" youth group, which

emigrated Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

from Turkey in 1945, and the "Bnei Horin" youth group, which emigrated from Romania in 1946. The kibbutz was established on the fields to the north of the Arab village of Beit Jibrin, which sat atop what was once a Hebrew town known as Beit Guvrin that was later renamed Eleutheropolis, "the city of free men" by the Romans in 200 CE. After the Arab Muslim conquest of the region, it became known in Arabic as Beit Jibrin. It was later the site of a Frankish (Crusader) colony, Bethgibelin, before being reconquered by the Muslims and returning to its Arabic moniker, Beit Jibrin.

Economy

The economy was formerly based on chicken coops, cowsheds and field crops. BG Technologies is located on the kibbutz. Other kibbutz-run businesses are a banquet hall, a clothing and gift store, a jewelry store, a dental clinic and a public swimming pool.

Landmarks

The kibbutz is surrounded by antiquities from the 1st century BC – 2nd-century CE town of Beit Guvrin.Around Jerusalem and the Dead Sea
Fodors the Beit Guvrin-Maresha National Park is a popular tourist destination which includes

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

-period caves with wall paintings,

columbaria A columbarium (; pl. columbaria), also called a cinerarium, is a structure for the reverential and usually public storage of funerary urns holding Cremation, cremated remains of the dead. The term comes from the Latin ''wikt:columba, columba'' (do ...

, a Roman city and ruins of a Crusader castle. The area is surrounded by many Islamic shrines (

maqam Maqam, makam, maqaam or maqām (plural maqāmāt) may refer to: Musical structures * Arabic maqam, melodic modes in traditional Arabic music ** Iraqi maqam, a genre of Arabic maqam music found in Iraq * Persian maqam, a notion in Persian clas ...

) like Nabi Jibrin, Sheikh Mahmoud, etc., but the holiest of them is Maqam Tamim al-Dari dedicated to a companion of

Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...

who had control over the

Hebron Hebron (; , or ; , ) is a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Hebron is capital of the Hebron Governorate, the largest Governorates of Palestine, governorate in the West Bank. With a population of 201,063 in ...

district which included the

Cave of the Patriarchs The Cave of the Patriarchs or Tomb of the Patriarchs, known to Jews by its Biblical name Cave of Machpelah () and to Muslims as the Sanctuary of Abraham (), is a series of caves situated south of Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the ...

. Today all the Muslim shrines are abandoned.

Jesus Christ Superstar ''Jesus Christ Superstar'' is a sung-through rock opera with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice. Loosely based on the Life of Jesus in the New Testament, Gospels' accounts of Passion of Jesus, the Passion, the work interprets ...

(1973) was filmed here.

References

{{Authority control Kibbutzim Kibbutz Movement Yoav Regional Council Populated places established in 1949 Archaeological sites in Israel Populated places in Southern District (Israel) 1949 establishments in Israel