Kedma ( he, קֵדְמָה) is a

youth village A youth village ( he, כפר נוער, ''Kfar No'ar'') is a boarding school model first developed in Mandatory Palestine in the 1930s to care for groups of children and teenagers fleeing the Nazis. Henrietta Szold and Recha Freier were the pion ...

in south-central

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. Located in the southern

Shephelah The Shephelah or Shfela, lit. "lowlands" ( hbo, הַשְּפֵלָה ''hašŠǝfēlā'', also Modern Hebrew: , ''Šǝfēlat Yəhūda'', the "Judaean foothills"), is a transitional region of soft-sloping rolling hills in south-central Israel str ...

, it falls under the jurisdiction of

Yoav Regional Council Yoav Regional Council ( he, מועצה אזורית יואב, ''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, cove ...

History

Kedma was founded as a

kibbutz A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...

as part of the

11 points in the Negev 11 points in the Negev ( he, 11 הנקודות or he2, אחת-עשרה הנקודות, ''Akhat-Esre HaNekudot'') refers to a Jewish Agency plan to establish 11 settlements in the Negev in 1946 prior to the partition of Palestine and the establis ...

campaign in 1946. It was founded on land traditionally belonging to the

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

village of

Summil Summil ( ar, صميل) is a village in the Gaza Sub-district of Mandatory Palestine, located northeast of Gaza. It is situated on a sandy hill on the coastal plain and in 1945 it had 950 inhabitants. became established during the 1948 Arab-Isr ...

. After 1948, it also started to farm some of the land belonging to

Bil'in Bil'in ( ar, بلعين) is a Palestinian village located in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, west of the city of Ramallah in the central West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Bil'in has a population of 1, ...

. Because of social and economic difficulties the kibbutz was abandoned at the end of the 1960s, and it became later on a youth village thanks to Reuben and Sara Mandell, who took in the youths of families who had been expelled by their parents for drug use or religious differences. The group that founded the community planned originally to locate it near

Netanya Netanya (also known as Natanya, he, נְתַנְיָה) is a city in the Northern Central District of Israel, and is the capital of the surrounding Sharon plain. It is north of Tel Aviv, and south of Haifa, between Poleg stream and Wingate ...

or the northwest shores of the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea ( he, יַם הַמֶּלַח, ''Yam hamMelaḥ''; ar, اَلْبَحْرُ الْمَيْتُ, ''Āl-Baḥrū l-Maytū''), also known by other names, is a salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank ...

, but after the latter was captured by the Jordanian army, they moved to the present-day location.

References

{{Authority control Youth villages in Israel Populated places in Southern District (Israel) 1946 establishments in Mandatory Palestine Populated places established in 1946