Shomrat ( he, שָׁמְרַת) is 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 ...

in northern

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 western

Galilee Galilee (; he, הַגָּלִיל, hagGālīl; ar, الجليل, al-jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and Lower Gali ...

on the coastal highway just north of

Acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial and US customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, of a square mile, 4,840 square ...

, it falls under the jurisdiction of

Mateh Asher Regional Council The Mateh Asher Regional Council ( he, מועצה אזורית מטה אשר, ''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 i ...

. In it had a population of .

History

The kibbutz was established on 29 May 1948 by

Hashomer Hatzair Hashomer Hatzair ( he, הַשׁוֹמֵר הַצָעִיר, , ''The Young Guard'') is a Labor Zionist, secular Jewish youth movement founded in 1913 in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary, and it was also the name of the gro ...

members from

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croa ...

and

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, a ...

on land that had belonged to the depopulated

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 al-Manshiyya, north of the village site, and also incorporated some land from

al-Sumayriyya Al-Sumayriyya ( ar, السُميريه, ''Katasir'' in Canaanite times, ''Someleria'' during Crusader rule), was a Palestinian village located six kilometers north of Acre that was depopulated after it was captured by the Israel Defense Forces ...

.Khalidi, p. 30 Some of the founders had fought with the partisan forces against the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

, while the majority came out of various Nazi concentration camps. Most of the kibbutz founders made their way to Palestine as part of the

Aliyah Bet ''Aliyah Bet'' ( he, עלייה ב', "Aliyah 'B'" – bet being the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet) was the code name given to illegal immigration by Jews, most of whom were refugees escaping from Nazi Germany, and later Holocaus ...

organization, and were consequently interned in DP camps in

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ...

. The founders originally resided in the agricultural experimental government station near

, and moved to the permanent location in 1950. Following an armed attack by a group of Arabs from al-Manshiyya on Shomrat members who were on their way to work at the Na'aman shingle factory in which the kibbutz secretary was killed,

Haganah Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the Is ...

forces were called in to remove the attackers. The kibbutz is located in the area of the

Tribe of Asher According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Asher was one of the Tribes of Israel descended from Asher (), the eighth son of Jacob. It is one of the ten lost tribes. Biblical narrative According to the biblical Book of Joshua, following the comp ...

, and is named after Shomer, one of Asher's sons. The name is also associated with the name of the Hashomer Hatzair movement to which the founders belonged. Designer Tzuri Gueta attended secondary school at Shomrat, and his first job was in the kibbutz knitting factory.

Economy

In 1993, the kibbutz opened a knitting factory.Tzuri Gueta, once a struggling designer is now the toast of Paris
Haaretz Following the collapse of Shomrat's industrial enterprises at the end of the 1990s, Shomrat reorganized itself on the renewed kibbutz model, instituting a differential pay scale and deep privatization of kibbutz services.

References

External links

Kibbutz Shomrat Official website
{{Mateh Asher Regional Council Czech-Jewish culture in Israel Hungarian-Jewish culture in Israel Kibbutzim Kibbutz Movement Populated places established in 1948 Populated places in Northern District (Israel) Romanian-Jewish culture in Israel Slovak-Jewish culture in Israel 1948 establishments in Israel