Meir Shfeya () is a youth village and agricultural

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. They have existed for many centuries, and now extend acr ...

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 near

Zikhron Ya'akov Zikhron Ya'akov () often shortened to just Zikhron, is a local council (Israel), town in northern Israel, south of the city of Haifa, and part of the Haifa District. It is located at the southern end of the Mount Carmel, Carmel mountain range over ...

, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hof HaCarmel Regional Council. In it had a population of .

History

The site of Meir Shfeya was once a

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 ...

village named Shefeia, meaning "the edge or margin". In 1859, the population was given as 100, who cultivated 11

feddan A feddan () is a unit of area used in Egypt, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Oman. In Classical Arabic, the word means 'a yoke of oxen', implying the area of ground that could be tilled by oxen in a certain time. In Egypt, the feddan is the only n ...

s of land. In 1882, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' (SWP) described as "a small village with a

well A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

to the north." A population list from about 1887 showed that Shefeia had about 130 inhabitants, all Muslims. Modern Meir Shfeya was established in 1891 as a

moshava A moshava (, plural: ''moshavot'' , ''colony'' or ''village'') was a form of agricultural Jewish settlement in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine (now Israel), established by the members of the Old Yishuv beginning in the late 1870s ...

adjacent to

. The name is a combination of Meir, named for Amschel Mayer (Meir) Rothschild, the grandfather of Baron Rothschild, and Shefeia. In 1904 Israel Belkind, a founder of

Bilu Bilu may refer to: People * Bilú (footballer, 1900-1965), Virgílio Pinto de Oliveira, Brazilian football manager and former centre-back * Asher Bilu (born 1936), Australian artist * Bilú (footballer, born 1974), Luciano Lopes de Souza, Brazi ...

, established an educational institute in the village under the name Kiryat Sefer,Orphanage which became a youth village
Ynetnews which took in orphans from the Kishinev pogrom. This made it the first youth village in the country. In 1917 the Herzliya Hebrew High School was temporarily moved to the village due to the expulsion of

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

s from

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

and

Jaffa Jaffa (, ; , ), also called Japho, Joppa or Joppe in English, is an ancient Levantine Sea, Levantine port city which is part of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, located in its southern part. The city sits atop a naturally elevated outcrop on ...

during

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 ...

. World War I left many orphaned children in Jerusalem. A girls school called ''Aliza's care center'', established in the yard of the Diskin Orphanage on Nevi'im Street with funding from the American Zionist women's organization, Hadassah, moved to Shfeya in 1923. In the Mandatory era, 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 ...

attributed a population of 81 to Meiriya (Shafiya), of which 38 were

s and 43 were Jews, increasing sharply in the 1931 census to 208; 40 Muslims and 168 Jews, in a total of 18 houses. In 1929, the annual convention of Junior Hadassah voted to acquire a farm at Rabia, near Meier Shefaya, where graduates of the school would engage in agriculture. A budget of $7,500 was allotted for this project over a period of three years until the farm became self-supporting. On 28 August 1929, the British police ordered the evacuation of the village to protect residents as the 1929 Palestine Riots engulfed the country. (28 August 1929)
Jerusalem Faced Grave Crisis Tuesday Noon As Arabs Renewed Attacks
''The Jewish Telegraphic Agency''. Retrieved on 22 February 2025 By the 1945 statistics the village had a population of 330, all Jews. The village was used as a training base 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 ...

due to its remote location in a mountainous area. In 1957 it was made a partnership between the State and the organisation, and today exists as a youth village.A little history
Meir Shfeya Image:PikiWiki Israel 12917 Settlements in Israel.jpg, Meir Shfeya in 1925 File:Fureidis 1938.jpg, Meir Shfeya (Shefeya) 1938 1:20,000 File:Jaba 1945.jpg, Meir Shfeya (Shefeiya) 1945 1:250,000 File:Meir Shefeya.jpg, Meir Shfeya youth village.

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 ...

archive photograph. 1946

Notable residents

* Sara Levi-Tanai, choreographer and songwriter

References

External links

Official website
*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 8:
IAAWikimedia commons
{{Authority control Youth villages in Israel Jewish villages in the Ottoman Empire 1891 establishments in the Ottoman Empire Populated places established in 1891 Populated places in Haifa District Hadassah Women's Zionist Organization of America