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Revadim (, lit. "terraces") 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 southern
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 southern
Shephelah The Shephelah () or Shfela (), or the Judaean Foothills (), is a transitional region of soft-sloping rolling hills in south-central Israel stretching over between the Judaean Mountains and the Coastal Plain. The different use of the term "Jud ...
(Judean foothills) region, it falls under the jurisdiction of Yoav Regional Council. In it had a population of .


History

Revadim was founded on 14 February 1947 as the fourth settlement of the Etzion Bloc in the
Hebron Hills The Hebron Hills, also known as Mount Hebron (, ), are a mountain ridge, geographic region, and geologic formation, constituting the southern part of the Judaean Mountains, Judean Mountains. The Hebron Hills are located in the southern West Ban ...
. It was established by the Tzabar pioneering group (distinct from the more recent Garin Tzabar) on tracts of land purchased by 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 ...
in Ein Abu Zeid and Shuweika. While the land was being reclassified as '' musha'a'' ollectively owned land the group cleared 100 dunams, 70 in Ein Abu Zeid and 30 in Wadi Abu Nofal, where the JNF owned a tract of '' mafruz'' ndividually owned tracts Plans included the reclamation of 70
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 in Wadi Abu Nofal and 150 in Dhahr al-Masatikh, which were acquired as part of a land exchange agreement.
Yossi Katz Yossi Katz (; born 19 August 1949) is an Israeli former politician who served as a member of the Knesset for the Labor Party and One Israel between 1992 and 2003. Biography Born in Haifa, Katz studied law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem ...
''Between Jerusalem and Hebron: Jewish Settlement in the Pre-State Period'', pp.254–264.
On 13 May 1948, the village was razed to the ground by the
Arab Legion The Arab Legion () was the police force, then regular army, of the Emirate of Transjordan, a British protectorate, in the early part of the 20th century, and then of the Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, an independent state, with a final Ar ...
. Survivors were taken prisoner by
Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...
. The kibbutz was re-established in a new location on 28 November 1948. The released POWs were joined by immigrants from Bulgaria and other countries. The new Revadim was located on the land of the newly depopulated
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 ...
village of Al-Mukhayzin, close to Al-Khayma. File:The four kibbutzes of the Gush Etzion Bloc (Kfar Etzion, Ein Zurim, Massuot Yitzhak, Revadim) overlaid on the 1943 Survey of Palestine map of Beit Fajjar.jpg, The four kibbutzes of the
Gush Etzion Gush Etzion (, ' Etzion Bloc) is a cluster of Israeli settlements located in the Judaean Mountains, directly south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the West Bank. The core group includes four Jewish agricultural villages that were founded in 1943� ...
at the time of the 1948 war ( Kfar Etzion, Ein Zurim, Massuot Yitzhak, Revadim) overlaid on a 1943 Survey of Palestine map File:רבדים (מסלע) - גרעין "צבר" עולה על אדמת "רבדים" בהרי חברון - הנחת אבן הפינה ע"י מר פנחס מרגלית (ממשר-JNF033575.jpeg, Revadim, 11 February 1947, Mr Pinchas Margalit lays foundation stone File:רבדים (מסלע) - גרעין "מסלע" עולה על אדמת "רבדים" בהרי חברון - גידור שטח הנקודה-JNF028824.jpeg, Revadim, February 1947, fencing File:רבדים (מסלע) - גרעין "מסלע" עולה על אדמת "רבדים" בהרי חברון-JNF028825.jpeg, Revadim, February 1947, water tank,
Magen David Adom The Magen David Adom (, abbr. MDA, pronounced ''MAH-dah'' per its Hebrew acronym, ) is Israel's national emergency medicine, emergency medical, Emergency management, disaster, ambulance and blood bank service. The literal meaning of the name is ...
ambulance in background File:רבדים (מסלע) - גרעין "צבר" עולה על אדמת "רבדים" בהרי חברון - הקמת הנקודה-JNF033576.jpeg, Revadim, February 1947, first building File:רבדים (מסלע) - גרעין "צבר" עולה על אדמת "רבדים" בהרי חברון - הקמת הנקודה-JNF033580.jpeg, Revadim, February 1947, colonist’s accommodation File:רבדים (מסלע) - גרעין "צבר" עולה על אדמת "רבדים" בהרי חברון - סטודנטים אמריקאים משתתפים בהקמת המחנה-JNF033577.jpeg, Revadim, February 1947, American students File:רבדים (מסלע) - גרעין "צבר" עולה על אדמת "רבדים" נקמת הנקודה-JNF028739.jpeg, Revadim, 11 February 1947 File:רבדים - מראה כללי-JNF026996.jpeg, Revadim, 1 December 1947


Economy

The economy is based on tourism and small industry. It operates a guest rooms and a museum of antiquities. The Roman Glass Co. designs original jewellery for a worldwide market.


Landmarks

The kibbutz has a memorial for members who fell in 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 ...
. Tel Miqne-Ekron, an archaeological tell on the grounds of the kibbutz, is believed to be the site of the biblical city of
Ekron Ekron (Philistine: 𐤏𐤒𐤓𐤍 ''*ʿAqārān'', , ), in the Hellenistic period known as Accaron () was at first a Canaanite, and later more famously a Philistine city, one of the five cities of the Philistine Pentapolis, located in pr ...
. A reconstructed Philistine street is open to visitors. The kibbutz operates the Ekron Museum of the History of Philistine Culture which displays finds from the excavations.A Reconstructed Philistine Street
/ref>


Archaeology


Prehistory

An archeological site in the Revadim region, other than Tel Miqne-Ekron, is at least 300 to 500 thousand years old (based on paleomagnetism analysis and uranium date series), and the archaeological finds there belong to the Late
Acheulean Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associated with ''Homo ...
. Numerous faunal remains were excavated at the site, as well as some flint tools with fat residue, suggesting that the bones (including those of
straight-tusked elephant The straight-tusked elephant (''Palaeoloxodon antiquus'') is an extinct species of elephant that inhabited Europe and Western Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle and Late Pleistocene. One of the largest known elephant species, mature full ...
) belong to butchered game.


Tel Miqne, the Philistine city of Ekron

Tel Miqne-Ekron (Khirbat al-Muqanna') is one of the largest
Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...
(12th century–586 BCE) sites in Israel. Archaeologists have discovered over 100 7th-century BCE oil presses there, as well as the Ekron Inscription from that same century, which identifies the site as Philistine Ekron. The tell shows signs of occupation in the Chalcolithic period (4500–3100 BCE) and throughout the Bronze Age (3100–1200 BCE), but only becomes an important city in the 12th century BCE with the arrival of the
Philistines Philistines (; LXX: ; ) were ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan during the Iron Age in a confederation of city-states generally referred to as Philistia. There is compelling evidence to suggest that the Philistines origi ...
, one of the
Sea Peoples The Sea Peoples were a group of tribes hypothesized to have attacked Ancient Egypt, Egypt and other Eastern Mediterranean regions around 1200 BC during the Late Bronze Age. The hypothesis was proposed by the 19th-century Egyptology, Egyptologis ...
. Once the Kingdom of Judah managed to take over the dominant position from the Philistines in the 10th century BCE, Ekron was reduced in importance and size (from 10 acres to 5 acres, with the abandonment of the Lower City). The Assyrian conquest of the 8th century BCE actually brought an economic revival, with a huge olive oil industry occupying 20% of the space within the city, and with a large number of
loom A loom is a device used to weaving, weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the Warp (weaving), warp threads under tension (mechanics), tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of ...
weights found in the oil production rooms indicating that the population developed an active textile industry for the time outside the olive processing season. Ekron supplied Egypt and the Assyrian empire with 700 tons of olive oil a year, making it the largest olive oil industrial center in the ancient Middle East. After the Babylonian onslaught of the 6th century BCE, the Philistine culture and identity disappeared. Blair Boone, ''Seymour Gitin, B.A. 1956'', UBtoday, University at Buffalo's online alumni magazine, spring 1997
/ref> The reconstructed Philistine street in the kibbutz, which can be visited only by previous appointment, features an oil press, a potter's wheel and a loom.


References


External links


Official websiteKibbutz Revadim Collection
on the Digital collections of Younes and Soraya Nazarian Library, University of Haifa {{Authority control Jewish villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War Kibbutzim Populated places in Southern District (Israel) Populated places established in 1947 Populated places established in 1948 1947 establishments in Mandatory Palestine 1948 establishments in Israel