Ga'aton () 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 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 western

Galilee Galilee (; ; ; ) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon consisting of two parts: the Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and the Lower Galilee (, ; , ). ''Galilee'' encompasses the area north of the Mount Carmel-Mount Gilboa ridge and ...

, it falls under the jurisdiction of

Mateh Asher Regional Council The Mateh Asher Regional Council (, ''Mo'atza Azorit Mateh Asher'') is a regional council in the western Galilee of northern Israel. It is named after the Tribe of Asher which had been allotted the region in antiquity according to the Book of Jos ...

. In it had a population of .

Etymology

The name Ga'aton is taken from the

Ga'aton River The Ga'aton Stream (, Nahal HaGa'aton; , Wadi al-Mafshukh)Khalidi, 1992, p. 19 is a small river in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. It passes through the town of Nahariya before emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. Th ...

that passes nearby and flows through

Nahariya Nahariya () is the northernmost coastal city in Israel. As of , the city had a population of . The city was founded in 1935 by Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. Etymology Nahariya takes its name from the stream of Ga'aton River, Ga'aton (riv ...

into the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

. Ga'aton is also the name of a biblical town in the allotment of

Asher Asher ( ''’Āšēr''), in the Book of Genesis, was the younger of the two sons of Jacob and Zilpah, and Jacob's eighth son overall. He was the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Asher. Name The text of the Torah states that the name אָ� ...

, located at one of the ancient tells (mounds) near the kibbutz. The tell known as Hurvat Ga'aton ("ruins of Ga'aton"; Arabic Khirbat Ja'tun) northwest of the kibbutz and near the Ga'aton River is one candidate, and there are other tells in the vicinity with remains from the time of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

of the

Vulgate The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels used by the Diocese of ...

it is ''Gaas''.

History

Antiquity

Ceramic remains found in Ga'aton were dated to the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

era, 5th to 7th century CE. In the Crusader period, Ga'aton (named ''Iazon'') was mentioned in 1160, when it and several other villages in the area of Castellum Regis was transferred to a Crusader named ''Iohanni de Caypha'' (Johannes of Haifa). In 1182 ''Jazun'' was especially excluded from the list of estates belonging to

Jocelyn III Joscelin III (c. 1139 – after 1190) was the titular count of Edessa, who during his lifetime managed to amass enough land to establish a lordship in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Early life Joscelin III was the son of Joscelin II and Beatr ...

in the area. In 1220, when Jocelyn III's daughter

Beatrix de Courtenay Beatrix de Courtenay (died after 1245) was a Titular Countess of Edessa and Countess consort of Henneberg as the wife of Otto von Botenlauben. She was the eldest daughter of Agnes of Milly and Joscelin III, Count of Edessa, who sold Chastel Ne ...

and her husband

Otto von Botenlauben Otto von Botenlauben or Botenlouben (1177, Henneberg – before 1245, near Bad Kissingen), the Count of Henneberg from 1206, was a German minnesinger, Crusader and monastic founder. Otto von Botenlauben was the fourth son of Count Poppo VI ...

sold

Mi'ilya Mi'ilya (, ), also called Mi'elya, is an Arab local council in the western Galilee in the Northern District of Israel. Its name during the Kingdom of Jerusalem era in Galilee was Castellum Regis. In it had a population of , all of whom are M ...

and its dependencies to the

Teutonic Knights The Teutonic Order is a Catholic religious institution founded as a military society in Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem was formed to aid Christians on their pilgrimages to t ...

, Ga'aton (called ''Ihazon, Jaharon, Jaroth'') was again explicitly excluded from the sale.Strehlke, 1869, pp
43
44, No. 53; pp
47
49, Nos. 58-59; Cited in Röhricht, 1893, RRH, p
248
No. 934; Cited Frankel, 1988, p. 259 In documents dating to 1253 (''Jasson'') and 1256, (''Jashon'') it was included in the area of

Casal Imbert Achziv ( ''ʾAḵzīḇ'') or Az-Zeeb () is an ancient site on the Mediterranean coast of northern Israel, between the border with Lebanon and the city of Acre. It is located north of Acre on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, within the mun ...

. In 1283 Ga'aton was still part of the Crusader states, as it was mentioned as part of their domain in the

hudna A ''hudna'' (from the Arabic meaning "calm" or "quiet") is a truce or armistice. It is sometimes translated as " cease-fire". In his medieval dictionary of classical Arabic, the '' Lisan al-Arab'', Ibn Manzur defined it as: : "''hadana'': he ...

between the Crusaders based in

Acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

and the

Mamluk Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...

sultan

Qalawun (, – November 10, 1290) was the seventh Turkic Bahri Mamluk sultan of Egypt; he ruled from 1279 to 1290. He was called (, "Qalāwūn the Victorious"). After having risen in power in the Mamluk court and elite circles, Qalawun eventually hel ...

Ottoman era

Incorporated into the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

in 1517, ''Ja'tun'' appeared in the

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 1596, located in the ''

Nahiya A nāḥiyah ( , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiyeh, nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level divisi ...

'' of Acca of the '' Liwa'' of

Safad Safed (), also known as Tzfat (), is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of up to , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and in Israel. Safed has been identified with (), a fortified town in the Upper Gal ...

. The population was 11 households, all

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 25% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, fruit trees, cotton, goats and beehives; in addition to grasslands, occasional revenues and a water mill, a total of 3000

Akçe The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (anglicized as ''akche'', ''akcheh'' or ''aqcha''; ; , , in Europe known as '' asper'') was a silver coin mainly known for being the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. It was also used in other states includi ...

. In 1875,

Victor Guérin Victor Guérin (; 15 September 1821 – 21 September 1890) was a French people, French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included ...

found the village to have 15 farmers and shepherds, however, in 1881, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) found at ''Khurbet Jathun'' only heaps of stones and modern ruins, a few mills, and some well-dressed stones scattered about.

British Mandate

The

1922 census of Palestine The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922. The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divis ...

listed under "Ja'atun" a population of 19 Muslims.Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Acre, p
36
/ref> Part of the area was acquired by the Jewish community as part of the

Sursock Purchases The Sursock Purchases were land purchases made by Jewish organizations from the absentee landowning Lebanese Greek Orthodox Christian Sursock family, mainly from 1901 to 1925. These included the Jezreel Valley and Haifa Bay, as well as other l ...

. In the 1945 statistics the population of Ga'aton was 140, all Jews;Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
4
/ref> the area was counted together with that of

Shavei Tzion Shavei Tzion (, ''lit.'' Returnees to Zion) is a moshav shitufi in northern Israel. Located between Acre and Nahariya and covering 2,000 dunams, it falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Asher Regional Council. In it had a population of . Hist ...

Mazra'a Mazra'a (, ) is an Arab village and local council in northern Israel, situated between Acre and Nahariyya east of the Coastal Highway that runs along the Mediterranean coast. The local council was founded in 1896 and was incorporated into the ...

and Ein Sara, and totalled 7,407

dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...

s of land according to an official land and population survey.

State of Israel

Kibbutz Ga'aton was established in October 1948 in the hills east of

by a group of Jewish immigrants from Hungary. The name for the kibbutz was taken from a town mentioned in historical accounts of the Jewish return from Babylon which the founders believed was located on the site of Ja'tun. According to

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

historian

Walid Khalidi Walid Khalidi (; born in Jerusalem on July 16, 1925) is a Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, established in Beirut in December 1963 as an inde ...

, the kibbutz was founded on the land of

Khirbat Jiddin Khirbat Jiddin (), known in the Kingdom of Jerusalem as Judin, was an Ottoman fortress in the western Upper Galilee, originally built by the Teutonic Order after 1220 as a crusader castle, 16 km northeast of the city of Acre, which at the ...

, a castle in

Yehi'am Fortress National Park Yehi'am Fortress National Park is an Israeli national park in western Upper Galilee on the grounds of Kibbutz Yehi'am, whose main attractions are the ruins of a hilltop castle in Jiddin. The castle, ruined in the early 14th century, became a sm ...

used by the al-Suwaytat

Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu ( ; , singular ) are pastorally nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Bedouin originated in the Sy ...

tribe and listed by Khalidi as a depopulated

village.Morris, 2004, p
xxi
settlement #30.Khalidi, 1992, p. 19.

Economy

One of the kibbutz industries is Yamaton Ltd., a joint venture with Kibbutz

Ein Hamifratz Ein HaMifratz (, ''lit.'' Bayview) is a kibbutz south of Acre in northern Israel. Located on the Mediterranean coast, it falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Asher Regional Council. As of it had a population of . History Kibbutz Ein HaMifrat ...

. The company produces honeycomb paper products. Kibbutz Ga'aton is the home of the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company (KCDC). The company's dance groups participate in some 200 performances a year in Israel and overseas.Kibbutz Movement
''

Jerusalem Post ''The Jerusalem Post'' is an English-language Israeli broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, Israel, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''The Palestine Post''. In 1950, it changed its name to ''The Je ...

'', by LILACH GAVISH, MICHELLE SHABTAI, FEBRUARY 5, 2009

Notable people

* Yael Ron Ben-Moshe (born 1978), member of the

Knesset The Knesset ( , ) is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Israel. The Knesset passes all laws, elects the President of Israel, president and Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister, approves the Cabinet of Israel, cabinet, and supe ...

for Blue and White * Shmuel Katz (1926–2010), artist, illustrator and cartoonist

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 3
IAAWikimedia commons
{{Authority control Kibbutzim Kibbutz Movement Populated places in Northern District (Israel) 1948 establishments in Israel