Tze'elim () 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

Negev The Negev ( ; ) or Naqab (), is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort town, resort city ...

desert, it falls under the jurisdiction of

Eshkol Regional Council Eshkol Regional Council (, ''Mo'atza Ezorit Eshkol'') is a regional council in the north-western Negev, in Israel's Southern District. The regional council's territory lies midway between Ashkelon and Beersheba, bounded on the west by the Gaza St ...

. In it had a population of . A military training base of the ground forces of the IDF (often named "Tze'elim Base") is located nearby.

History

The kibbutz was founded in January 1947 by

gar'in Gar'in (, ''lit.'' kernel) is a Hebrew term used for groups of people who moved together to Ottoman Palestine, British Palestine, and since 1948, Israel.Joel Beinin The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry- 2005 9774248902 "arrived in Israel while the m ...

from Jewish youth movements in

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

and

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

and was named for the abundant

acacia ''Acacia'', commonly known as wattles or acacias, is a genus of about of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa, South America, and Austral ...

trees in the area, which were mistakenly identified as the

biblical The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

''Tze'elim'' trees. During 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 ...

the kibbutz was used as a

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...

base. Many of the

Selvino children The Selvino children were a group of approximately 810 Jewish children orphaned by the Holocaust,Ahron Megged; Vivien Eden, The Story of the Selvino Children', August 2001, Valentine Mitchell & Co Ltd, rescued after World War II from ghettos an ...

were settled in the kibbutz.

Economy

Today the kibbutz markets itself as a tourist destination, with a natural hot springs

spa A spa is a location where mineral-rich spring water (sometimes seawater) is used to give medicinal baths. Spa health treatments are known as balneotherapy. The belief in the curative powers of mineral waters and hot springs goes back to pre ...

and accommodation. Other economic activities are agriculture and farming. A 120 MW

solar power Solar power, also known as solar electricity, is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV) or indirectly using concentrated solar power. Solar panels use the photovoltaic effect to c ...

plant, Israel's largest to date, opened in the kibbutz in 2020. The production plant for

cleantech Clean technology, also called cleantech or climate tech, is any process, product, or service that reduces negative environmental impacts through significant energy efficiency improvements, the sustainable use of resources, or environmental prote ...

materials made out of unsorted garbage of the Israeli company UBQ Materials is located at the kibbutz.

Transport

Tze'elim is linked to the regional council by bus route 14, to

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

by bus route 376, to

Ofakim Ofakim () is a city in the Southern District (Israel), Southern District of Israel, 20 kilometers (12.4 mi) west of Beersheba. It achieved municipal status in 1955. It has an area of 10,000 dunams (~3.9 sq mi; 10 km2). In , it had a populatio ...

by bus route 30 and to

Beersheba Beersheba ( / ; ), officially Be'er-Sheva, is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the centre of the fourth-most populous metropolitan area in Israel, the eighth-most p ...

by bus route 130. All 4 bus routes are operated by

Dan BaDarom Dan Bus Company () is an Israeli bus company based in Tel Aviv. It operates local bus service in the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area (Gush Dan). Dan operates 1,200 buses and has 2,400 employees. It transports approximately over 600,000 passengers dai ...

. Tze'elim is situated off

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It includes not just major roads, but also other public roads and rights of way. In the United States, it is also used as an equivalent term to controlled-access highway, or ...

222, in the north-western

Urban Warfare Training Center

In 2005 the Israeli Defense Forces, with assistance from the United States, built the Urban Warfare Training Center at the Tze'elim Army Base, at a cost of $45 million. Nicknamed "Baladia" (Arabic for "city"), it is a 7.4 square mile training center used to instruct soldiers in urban warfare techniques, and consists of an imitation Middle Eastern style city with multiple multistorey buildings. It has been used to train various military organizations, including the US Army and UN peacekeepers. The project was developed in response to the need for greater urban warfare training amongst the IDF, following the conflict during the

Second Intifada The Second Intifada (; ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against Israel and its Israeli-occupied territories, occupation from 2000. Starting as a civilian uprising in Jerusalem and October 2000 prot ...

References

External links and references

Official website

Urban Warfare Training Center – Simulating the Modern Battle-Field
IDF 2011

Global Security
Tze'elim
Negev Information Centre {{Authority control Kibbutzim Kibbutz Movement Populated places established in 1947 1947 establishments in Mandatory Palestine Populated places in Southern District (Israel) North African-Jewish culture in Israel