Ein HaShofet (, ''lit.'' Spring of the Judge) 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 northern Israel. Located in the

Menashe Heights The Manasseh Hills or hill country of Manasseh, directly derived from Hebrew: Menashe Heights (), called Bilad ar-Ruha in Arabic, meaning "Land of Winds", is a geographical region in northern Israel, located on the Carmel Range, between Mount Ca ...

region around 25 km southeast of the city of

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

, close to Yokneam, it falls under the jurisdiction of Megiddo Regional Council. In it had a population of . Ein HaShofet was established by two

Hashomer Hatzair Hashomer Hatzair (, , 'The Young Guard') is a Labor Zionism, Labor Zionist, secular Jewish youth movement founded in 1913 in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary. It was also the name of the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party, the ...

groups from

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

and Highland Mills, New York. They first settled the hill of

Jo'ara Jo'ara is a former military installation in the Menashe Heights. A small Palestinians, Palestinian Arab village existed on the hill until the 1930s. Between 1938 and 1948, it became the main military school for commanding officers of the Haganah ...

in 1937 and moved to the current location in 1938. "Ein HaShofet," literally, Judge's Spring, was named in honor of United States Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941), who played a leading role in the American

Zionist Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...

movement. There is a flowing spring nearby the kibbutz. The kibbutz owns three industrial companies which produce metal parts, mostly for vehicles, and lighting products on a global scale.

Geography

Ein HaShofet is located on the

, 5 kilometers south of the city of

Yokneam Illit Yokneam Illit (), also Yoqne'am Illit, is a city in the Northern District of Israel. It is located in a hilly region of the Lower Galilee at the base of the Carmel Mountains, and overlooks the Jezreel Valley. It is from Haifa and from Tel Av ...

. Other places near Ein HaShofet include the kibbutzim of Ramat HaShofet, Dalia and the hill of

. The kibbutz is accessed through the 6954 and 6953 roads, connected to Highway 66 and regional route 672.

History

British Mandate

The founders of the kibbutz were from two

groups. The first group, "Banir, " was from

Częstochowa Częstochowa ( , ) is a city in southern Poland on the Warta with 214,342 inhabitants, making it the thirteenth-largest city in Poland. It is situated in the Silesian Voivodeship. However, Częstochowa is historically part of Lesser Poland, not Si ...

, Poland. The group formed in 1931 and arrived in

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 1935. It received farm training in

Ein HaHoresh Ein HaHoresh () is a kibbutz in the Sharon region of the Central District of Israel. Located to the north of Netanya and to the south of Hadera, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Hefer Valley Regional Council. In it had a population of . ...

. The other group was from Highland Mills, New York. They formed a group in 1922 and did their training at Mishmar HaEmek in 1931. This group started out with 17 members, reaching 30 in 1933. In May 1934, the two groups united in Hadera under the name "Banir-America" and worked there together. The initial location of the kibbutz was the hill of

, about one kilometer from the current location of the kibbutz. It was owned by an

Effendi Effendi or effendy ( ; ; originally from ) is a title of nobility meaning '' sir'', ''lord'' or '' master'', especially in the Ottoman Empire and the Caucasus''.'' The title itself and its other forms are originally derived from Medieval Gree ...

from a family called Salah, residing in

, and was populated by Arab

tenant farmer A tenant farmer is a farmer or farmworker who resides and works on land owned by a landlord, while tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and ma ...

s. In 1936, 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 ...

bought the land from the effendi and paid each sharecropper for their evacuation. The funds for the deal were raised by Louis D. Brandeis, a United States Supreme Court Justice lawyer, and a prominent Zionist figure. The Americans donated 70,000

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...

for the cause, with 50,000 coming from Brandeis himself. The kibbutz was named in his honor. On 5 July 1937 some of the members departed from Mishmar HaEmek, escorted by 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 ...

, and arrived to the hill of Jo'ara. The kibbutz was established a part of the Tower and Stockade settlement drive. Built on JNF land with the help of the Keren Hayesod company, it was the first Jewish settlement on the

. Their departure was celebrated in Mishmar HaEmek, from where they brought dismantled structures, equipment for building a wall, and trees for planting. The climb was done on foot, as there was no paved road to the top of the hill. During the following winter the way to the hill was blocked and the members paved a new access road. The members stayed on the hill for one year before moving to the current and final location of the kibbutz. They left the hill of Jo'ara after realizing it was too small. It was handed to the

militia. The construction of, the first permanent building took place in June 1938 and in October the rest of the members from Hadera and Jo'ara joined the kibbutz in its final location. Many members joined the

paramilitary organization and the Notrim Jewish police force. In

1945 1945 marked the end of World War II, the fall of Nazi Germany, and the Empire of Japan. It is also the year concentration camps were liberated and the only year in which atomic weapons have been used in combat. Events World War II will be ...

, Ein HaShofet had a population of 320, all Jews. It was noted that it was the village formerly named Ji'ara (i.e. Jo'ara).Department of Statistics, 1945, p
13
/ref>Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p
47
/ref> Despite a lack of water and hilly difficult reclamation, in 1948, with a population of 450, they "were a successful mixed hill farm with orchards, dry cereals, dairy products, sheep herding and chicken farming." During the

Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine The Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine, known in the United Kingdom as the Palestine Emergency, was a paramilitary campaign carried out by Zionist militias and underground groups—including Haganah, Lehi (militant group), Lehi, and Irgun ...

, Ein HaShofet housed a factory for explosives used by the Jewish militia against the British. During the

1948 Arab-Israeli war Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The current Constitutions of Constitution of Italy, Italy and of Constitution of New Jersey, New Jersey (both later subject to amendment) ...

, the Ein HaShofet villagers helped to defeat Fawzi al-Qawuqji's

forces In physics, a force is an influence that can cause an object to change its velocity unless counterbalanced by other forces. In mechanics, force makes ideas like 'pushing' or 'pulling' mathematically precise. Because the magnitude and directi ...

after their April 1948 attack on Mishmar HaEmek.

State of Israel

Until 1962, the kibbutz absorbed five other groups. Two of them were made of

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 ...

and the other are youth groups from Israel.

Economy

The primary component of Ein HaShofet's economy is its industry with three working factories in the kibbutz. According to the 2008 national census, 43% of the workers work in the kibbutz's industrial sector. The secondary component and historically the center of the kibbutz life is agriculture, which employs 20 members of the kibbutz in five different sectors.

Industry

The kibbutz owns three industrial companies through the Ein-Hashofet Industries Group. *Mivrag Cold Forming Technology is a company that produces cold-formed steel components. In the local market, Mivrag supplies agriculture, industrial, high-tech and wholesale companies. In the worldwide market, Mivrag supplies automative companies. With the establishment of the factory in 1952, Mivrag manufactured wooden screws. In the 1960s and 1970s the factory expanded to other products and moved to use metals. In 1987 the factory moved to its current facility. The company began to thrive since the 1990s, expanding its sales to Asia, North America and Europe. *Eltam is a company that produces lighting products. *MAG Ltd. (Mivrag Automative Group) was established in 1999 and produces assemblies for the automotive industry.

Agriculture

*Dairy farming is the first agriculture sector of the kibbutz, beginning already in 1938 with the move to the kibbutz's current location. The dairy has over 200 dairy cows and produces several million liters of milk per year. *Cattle farming began in the 1950s in order to exploit lands that couldn't be used for farming. The cattle sector is owned in partnership with kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek (Ein HaShofet owns about 70% of it). The sector struggles to exist due to low profits. In addition to cattle growing, the kibbutz has a successful cattle fattening facility. *Orchards are today used for

Avocado The avocado, alligator pear or avocado pear (''Persea americana'') is an evergreen tree in the laurel family (Lauraceae). It is native to Americas, the Americas and was first domesticated in Mesoamerica more than 5,000 years ago. It was priz ...

growing. The avocado growing began in the mid 1970s. In the early days of the kibbutz, plum trees were the main products. In the 1940s it were vineyards, followed by apples, peaches and pears in the 1950s. *Poultry farming in the kibbutz is centered since 1971 on Chicken fattening. *The field crops sector in the kibbutz is relatively small but profitable. It is centered on

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

and

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

Archaeology

Numerous burial caves have been discovered at Dhaharat el-Marshafa, a site situated to the east of Ein HaShofet. Within one of them, a funerary inscription in either

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

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 ...

was found carved into the wall, adorned with traces of red paint. Another discovery from Ein HaShofet is an octagonal bronze ring engraved with Samaritan letters, although only a portion of it remains legible. It is speculated that this ring may have been used for mystical or magical purposes. The local museum displays

amphoras An amphora (; ; English ) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storage rooms and packages, tied together with rope and delivered by land ...

with Greek dipintos dating back to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.

Gallery

File:Jo'ara (1937).jpg, The hill of Jo'ara, July 1937 File:עין השופט - נקודת ההתיישבות החדשה.-JNF044909.jpeg, Ein HaShofet 1937 File:עין השופט - אימון החברות בתרגילי הגנה.-JNF044880.jpeg, Ein HaShofet 1937 File:Tower-and-Stockade Ein-Hashofet.jpg, Ein HaShofet tower and stockade, 1938 File:עין השופט - מראה.-JNF045545.jpeg, Ein HaShofet Ji’ara village 1939 File:עין השופט - מראה עין השופט הישנה-JNF033665.jpeg, Ein HaShofet showing first location 1939 File:עין השופט - מראה כללי, צילום אויר-JNF035093.jpeg, Ein HaShofet 1939 File:עין השופט - מראה כללי.-JNF045334.jpeg, Ein HaShofet 1945

References

External links

Kibbutz website
*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 8
IAAWikimedia commonsKibbutz Ein HaShofet Collection
on the Digital collections of Younes and Soraya Nazarian Library, University of Haifa {{Authority control Kibbutzim Kibbutz Movement Populated places established in 1937 Jewish villages in Mandatory Palestine Populated places in Northern District (Israel) 1937 establishments in Mandatory Palestine