Shluhot (, lit. "Branches") is an

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pag ...

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 the

Beit She'an Valley The Beit She'an Valley ( or ) is a valley in Israel. The valley lies within the Beit She'an rift, part of the Afro-Syrian Rift (Jordan Rift Valley), which opens westwards to the Harod Valley. It is a middle part of the Jordan Valley. The valle ...

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 about three kilometres south of the city of

Beit She'an Beit She'an ( '), also known as Beisan ( '), or Beth-shean, is a town in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. The town lies at the Beit She'an Valley about 120 m (394 feet) below sea level. Beit She'an is believed to ...

, it falls under the jurisdiction of

Valley of Springs Regional Council Emek HaMa'ayanot Regional Council (, ''Mo'atza Azorit Emek HaMa'ayanot'', lit. ''Valley of the Springs Regional Council'') is a regional council (Israel), regional council in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel that encompas ...

. In it had a population of .

History

Shluhot was founded in 1948 by former members of the

Bnei Akiva Bnei Akiva (, , "Children of Akiva") is the largest religious Zionist youth movement in the world, with over 125,000 members in 42 countries. It was first established in Mandatory Palestine in 1929, advocating the values of Torah and labor. Bne ...

Zionist youth movement A Zionist youth movement () is an organization formed for Jewish children and adolescents for educational, social, and ideology, ideological development, including a belief in Zionism, Jewish nationalism as represented in the State of Israel. Yout ...

on the land that had belonged to the 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-Ashrafiyya Al-Ashrafiyya (), was a Palestinian Arab village in the District of Baysan. It was depopulated during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine. It was located 4.5 km southwest of Baysan. The village was depopulated on May 12, 19 ...

. Initially, a temporary camp was set up along with a group from the

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 ...

youth movement. After each group was assigned land for a kibbutz, the secular group members founded

Reshafim Reshafim () is a kibbutz in northeastern Israel. Located two kilometres to the south of the city of Beit She'an in the Beit She'an Valley, it falls under the jurisdiction of Valley of Springs Regional Council. In , it had a population of . His ...

. Kibbutz Shluhot is one of four religious kibbutzim located in a cluster south of Beit She'an, from Shluhot at the base of

Mount Gilboa Mount Gilboa (; ''Jabal Jalbūʿ'' or ''Jabal Fuqqāʿa''), sometimes referred to as the Mountains of Gilboa, is the name for a mountain range in the West Bank. It overlooks the Harod Valley (the eastern part of the larger Jezreel Valley) to ...

Ein HaNatziv Ein or EIN may refer to: Science and technology * Ein function, in mathematics * Endometrial intraepithelial neoplasia, a lesion of the uterine lining * Equivalent input noise, of a microphone * European Informatics Network, a 1970s computer netw ...

and

Sde Eliyahu Sde Eliyahu (, ''lit.'' Eliyahu Field) is a Orthodox Judaism, religious kibbutz in northern Israel. Located five kilometres south of Beit She'an, it falls under the jurisdiction of Valley of Springs Regional Council. In it had a population of . ...

Tirat Zvi Tirat Zvi (, lit. ''Zvi Castle'') is a religious kibbutz in the Beit She'an Valley, ten kilometers south of the city of Beit She'an, Israel, just west of the Jordan River and the Israel-Jordan border. It falls under the jurisdiction of Valley of ...

adjacent to the

Jordan River The Jordan River or River Jordan (, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn''; , ''Nəhar hayYardēn''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Sharieat'' (), is a endorheic river in the Levant that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and drains to the Dead ...

. In 2007 Shluhot began to host a special needs school, Kulanu Academy, which teaches special needs children skills for adulthood and takes them on trips around Israel.

Economy

In the early years of the kibbutz, virtually all activity was centred on agriculture. In the last few decades new sources of revenue have been added. Today the economy is based on

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer ...

, and

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...

. Agricultural branches include

produce In American English, produce generally refers to wikt:fresh, fresh List of culinary fruits, fruits and Vegetable, vegetables intended to be Eating, eaten by humans, although other food products such as Dairy product, dairy products or Nut (foo ...

and

livestock Livestock are the Domestication, domesticated animals that are raised in an Agriculture, agricultural setting to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, Egg as food, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The t ...

, with an emphasis on

dairy farming Dairy farming is a class of agriculture for the long-term production of milk, which is processed (either on the farm or at a dairy plant, either of which may be called a dairy) for the eventual sale of a dairy product. Dairy farming has a h ...

poultry Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of harvesting animal products such as meat, Eggs as food, eggs or feathers. The practice of animal husbandry, raising poultry is known as poultry farming. These birds are most typ ...

(

turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

and

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...

coops),

date farming ''Phoenix dactylifera'', commonly known as the date palm, is a flowering-plant species in the palm family Arecaceae, cultivated for its edible sweet fruit called dates. The species is widely cultivated across northern Africa, the Middle East, ...

fish farming Fish farming or pisciculture involves commercial breeding of fish, most often for food, in fish tanks or artificial enclosures such as fish ponds. It is a particular type of aquaculture, which is the controlled cultivation and harvesting of ...

orchard An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit tree, fruit- or nut (fruit), nut-producing trees that are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also so ...

s, and

vegetable Vegetables are edible parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. This original meaning is still commonly used, and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including edible flower, flo ...

farming. Shluhot also has a

carrot The carrot ('' Daucus carota'' subsp. ''sativus'') is a root vegetable, typically orange in colour, though heirloom variants including purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist, all of which are domesticated forms of the wild ...

processing factory. In 2007, a cow from the dairy farm broke the Israeli record for most births, 14. One of the oldest kibbutz factories is ''Microvue'' which produces

microfilm A microform is a scaled-down reproduction of a document, typically either photographic film or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original d ...

readers/scanners, mostly for export. Microvue is one of the few microfilm reader manufacturers left in the world. ''Sheletron'', founded in 1996, produces electronic display solutions through text, pictures, video, and animation on LCD screens. In the early nineties, the kibbutz renovated a residential apartment building and turned it into a

bed and breakfast A bed and breakfast (typically shortened to B&B or BnB) is a small lodging establishment that offers overnight accommodation and breakfast. In addition, a B&B sometimes has the hosts living in the house. ''Bed and breakfast'' is also used to ...

, mainly geared for the

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 ...

ish market. The kibbutz has since added a wider variety of accommodations, ranging from single rooms to multiple-room housing units. In 1996, former

immigrants Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short- ...

(

olim ''Aliyah'' (, ; ''ʿălīyyā'', ) is the immigration of Jews from the diaspora to, historically, the geographical Land of Israel or the Palestine region, which is today chiefly represented by the State of Israel. Traditionally described ...

) from

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

founded a

summer camp A summer camp, also known as a sleepaway camp or residential camp, is a supervised overnight program for children conducted during the summer vacation from school in many countries. Children and adolescents who attend summer residential camps ...

called ''Kayitz Bakibbutz'', (in Hebrew "Summer on the kibbutz"), based on the typical 'American' sleepaway

experience geared toward youth. The kibbutz also has a

metalwork Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals in order to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term, it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on e ...

shop that designs and produces machines for agricultural use.

References

External links

Official website

Kayitz Bakibbutz Summer CampMicrovue
{{Authority control Kibbutzim Religious Kibbutz Movement Populated places established in 1948 Populated places in Northern District (Israel) 1948 establishments in Israel