Tel Yosef () 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 north-eastern

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

Jezreel Valley The Jezreel Valley (from the ), or Marj Ibn Amir (), also known as the Valley of Megiddo, is a large fertile plain and inland valley in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. It is bordered to the north by the highlands o ...

, it falls under the jurisdiction of

Gilboa Regional Council Gilboa Regional Council (, ''Mo'atza Azorit (ha)Gilbo'a'') is a Regional council (Israel), regional council in northern Israel, located on the slopes of the Mount Gilboa, Gilboa mountain range. There are more than 22,000 residents in 38 settlements ...

. In it had a population of .

History

In 1921, members of the

Gdud HaAvoda The Labour Battalion or Gdud HaAvoda () was a Labor Zionism, Labor Zionist work group in Mandatory Palestine. History Officially known as the Yosef Trumpeldor Labor and Defense Battalion (), Gdud HaAvoda was established on 8 August 1920 for the ...

"Work Battalion", at a time when their road work was decreasing, set up a work camp in the

Harod Valley The Harod Valley () is a valley in the Northern District of Israel. It is the eastern part of the Jezreel Valley, a transitional zone that extends to the Beit She'an Valley. From the south it locked by Mount Gilboa, and by the Issachar Plate ...

, the eastern extension of the

, at the foot 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 ...

. "Tel Yosef", Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2008
The Gale Group, via Jewish Virtual Library
The Gale Group, via Jewish Virtual Library The kibbutz was established on Sheikh Hassan hill in the same year the work battalion members, and was named after

Joseph Trumpeldor Joseph Vladimirovich (Volfovich) Trumpeldor (, ; , ; November 21, 1880 – March 1, 1920) was a Russian Zionist activist who helped organize the Zion Mule Corps and bring Jewish immigrants to Palestine. He was killed while defending the settlem ...

. Members worked at draining the swamps, a permanent source of

malaria Malaria is a Mosquito-borne disease, mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects vertebrates and ''Anopheles'' mosquitoes. Human malaria causes Signs and symptoms, symptoms that typically include fever, Fatigue (medical), fatigue, vomitin ...

. The Tel Yosef-

Ein Harod Ein Harod () was a kibbutz in northern Israel near Mount Gilboa. Founded in 1921, it became the center of Mandatory Israel's kibbutz movement, hosting the headquarters of the largest kibbutz organisation, HaKibbutz HaMeuhad. In 1923 part of the ...

group split in July 1923 over differences concerning economic autonomy, with two-thirds of the group settling Tel Yosef and the rest, Ein Harod. While it's sometimes considered that Ein Harod was founded in 1921 and Tel Yosef in 1923, the fact remains that together they formed one farming unit. In 1926, during a breakup of the Gdud HaAvoda along ideological faultlines separating the Marxists from the more moderate leftists, Ein Harod and Tel Yosef ceased their close cooperation. Mati Alon, ''Holocaust and Redemption'', pp. 62-63.
Trafford Publishing, 2004, According to a

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, Tel Yosef had a population of 112 Jews.J.B. Barron (1922
Reports and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922
/ref> The community was targeted during the

1929 Palestine Riots The 1929 Palestine riots, Buraq Uprising (, ) or the Events of 1929 (, , ''lit.'' Events of 5689 Anno Mundi), was a series of demonstrations and riots in late August 1929 in which a longstanding dispute between Palestinian Arabs and Jews ove ...

in August of that year, and destroyed by fire. (28 August 1929)
Jerusalem Faced Grave Crisis Tuesday Noon As Arabs Renewed Attacks
''The Jewish Telegraphic Agency''. Retrieved on 22 February 2025 At the time of the 1931 census, Tel Yosef had 72 occupied houses and a population of 261, all Jews. At its height, the kibbutz had 600 members. In the early 1950s, an ideological dispute headed by

Yitzhak Tabenkin Yitzhak Tabenkin (; 8 January 1888 – 6 June 1971) was a Zionist activist and Israeli politician. He was one of the founders of the kibbutz Movement. Biography Yitzchak Tabenkin was born in Babruysk in the Russian Empire (now Belarus) in 188 ...

led to a split in which 250 members joined the neighboring kibbutz, Beit HaShita. Supporters of

David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary List of national founders, national founder and first Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency ...

remained at Tel Yosef. File:תל יוסף - מראה כללי.-JNF044190.jpeg, Tel Yosef 1930 File:מראה תל יוסף בעמק יזרעאל-JNF034478.jpeg, Tel Yosef 1930 File:הרפת בקיבוץ תל-יוסף-JNF015241.jpeg, Tel Yosef 1945

Economy

The first citrus crop was planted in 1931. In 1936, Tnuva opened its first dairy at Tel Yosef, specializing in hard cheeses. In 1942, the kibbutz built the country's first commercial fishponds.Laughing All the Way to Middle Class, Amiram Cohen,

TheMarker ''TheMarker'' () is a Hebrew-language daily business newspaper published by the Haaretz Group in Israel. ''TheMarker'' was founded in 1999 by journalist and entrepreneur Guy Rolnik along with Haaretz Group and U.S.-based investors. Five years ...

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...

, end of the year magazine, December 2008, pp. 28–31

Notable people

* Ori Reisman

References

{{Authority control Kibbutzim Kibbutz Movement Populated places established in 1921 Populated places in Northern District (Israel) 1921 establishments in Mandatory Palestine Jezreel Valley