Bethlehem of Galilee

Bethlehem of Galilee lies in the lower Zebulun region, near Kiryat Tivon and southeast of Haifa, on the margins of the Jezreel Valley.[1][2] The addition “of Galilee” distinguishes it from Bethlehem in Judea.[2] Its neighboring community, Alonei Abba, is only a few hundred yards away and likewise originated as a German settlement, then called Waldheim.[4]

The modern moshav occupies land of the former German colony and is affiliated with Tenu’at ha-Moshavim.[1] Farming, tourism, and employment outside the community have provided residents with their livelihoods.[1] The preserved buildings and rural setting also make the village a visitor destination; the quiet settlement becomes busy with visitors on Saturdays.[2]

Joshua 19:15 includes Bethlehem among the towns and villages allotted to the tribe of Zebulun.[5] The Galilean locality is associated with that biblical name, which survived in the Arab place-name Beit Laʿm.[1] A reference work on biblical place names identifies Bethlehem of Zebulun with Beit Lahm, described as a small village seven miles northwest of Nazareth, and distinguishes it from Bethlehem of Judah.[5]

Jewish associations continued in late antiquity: lists of Galilean priestly places of residence place members of the Malkiya priestly division in Bethlehem in the third and fourth centuries.[1] The name Beth-Le’em ʿeriyah also appears in the Jerusalem Talmud, in Megillah 1:70a.[1]

The German colony was founded in 1906 by settlers from Haifa.[6][2] Second-generation Templers seeking land for agricultural settlement purchased 7,815 dunams from the Sursock family in the Bethlehem of Galilee area.[3] Bethlehem and nearby Waldheim were established as two small villages by Templers who had rejoined the Lutheran Church.[7]

The Templer movement originated among Protestant families in southwest Germany who sought a communal religious life distinct from Lutheran Protestantism.[6] Under Christoph Hoffman, the movement explored settlement near Jerusalem in the late 1850s, and its first settlers arrived in Eretz Israel in 1868.[6] Their religious outlook included the belief that they were “the new people of Israel”; settling in the Holy Land was connected with their expectation of redemption.[6][3]

Bethlehem belonged to a wider network of Templer settlements with religious and educational institutions and commercial enterprises.[6] Across these communities, economic activities included citrus and grape cultivation, factories producing iron goods and tools, a press house, hotels, a newspaper, and a bank.[6] The movement’s population in Eretz Israel grew from approximately 850 in 1878 to 1,300 in 1884 and about 2,000 on the eve of World War I; these totals describe the Templers collectively, not Bethlehem alone.[6]

German settlers were deported as enemy aliens when British forces conquered Palestine in 1917–1918, but were permitted to return after the war.[7] From September 1939, the Templers were treated as hostile nationals because most held German citizenship and because of the political views of some members.[6] During World War II, the Mandate authorities interned them, regarding them as a potential fifth column, and most were deported to Australia.[3] Others were repatriated to Germany through an exchange. Some Templers remained in Israel after 1948; several dozen were deported in 1950, while a few permitted to remain were no longer associated with the sect.[7]

Haganah forces took Bethlehem of Galilee and Waldheim in April 1948, after which settlement groups entered the former colonies and established moshavim.[3] The Bethlehem moshav was established that year on the former colony’s land.[1] Ten couples initially lived together in one of the original buildings, which later served as a small guesthouse.[8] The community received recognition as a moshav in 1952, and the Jewish Agency built private homes for its residents.[8]

Many of the newcomers arriving after the War of Independence preferred the new Jewish Agency houses to the older stone buildings, although some residents chose to preserve and restore the older homes.[4] The Israeli government took over Templer property in 1948, and that property was subsequently taken into account in the reparations agreement with the Federal Republic of Germany.[7] Templers and their descendants received compensation for property left behind.[3]

The moshav’s recorded population rose from 270 in 1968 to approximately 425 in the mid-1990s and 570 in 2002.[1] These are historical population figures rather than a current count.[1] Its residents included immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe as well as Israeli-born inhabitants.[1]

Agriculture, tourism, and work outside the moshav have formed the principal bases of residents’ livelihoods.[1] An example of specialized cultivation is Yossi Jaeger’s production of Arizona cypresses for Christmas trees.[8] He cuts and sells the crown from the middle of a tree, allowing the remaining tree to regrow; producing a new crown can take as long as four years.[8]

A January 17, 2021 article on land allocation and population growth in the Jezreel Valley Regional Council highlighted local housing costs.[9] Quarter-dunam lots in Bethlehem of Galilee were being offered to community members at a starting price of one million shekels, while larger lots in the nearby Bedouin villages of Beit Zarzir and Ka’abiyye were offered for less than one-tenth of that price.[9]

Local heritage activities have included a small museum in a former Templer house, displaying photographs of the German family that once lived there.[2] The later residents gathered documents and stories about the building and located the former residents’ family in Australia, obtaining photographs from its family album.[2]

The former colony was arranged along a long main street intersected by a perpendicular street, with public buildings concentrated at their junction.[3] The central community hall and water tower remain prominent landmarks.[3] Many of the original houses have survived and undergone renovation.[3]

The houses combined European architectural influences with adaptations to local conditions.[3] Their features included food-storage cellars, raised foundations, thick stone walls, high ceilings, symmetrical wooden windows that provided ventilation, and red-tiled roofs.[3] At the time of a 2009 report, each former colony had about 30 houses, and preservation was largely the work of local residents despite the absence of clear preservation guidelines.[10]

Archaeological remains add another dimension to the village’s built heritage.[11] Archaeologist Aviram Oshri spent nearly eleven years excavating at Bethlehem of Galilee and uncovered a large Byzantine-era church with a cave beneath its apse.[11] Other finds included sections of a wall that may have encircled the village, a two-story structure interpreted as a possible ancient khan or guesthouse, and an oil lamp dated to the time of Jesus.[11]

The association with biblical Bethlehem in Zebulun rests on textual and place-name identifications rather than an archaeological demonstration of identity with the modern locality.[1][5] A proposed connection with Judges 12:8–9 and a possible association with the amora Kahana bar Malkiya remain tentative.[1] The meaning of the Talmudic name Beth-Le’em ʿeriyah is unresolved; Dalman’s interpretation connected it with a Bethlehem that had once belonged to Tyre.[1]

A more prominent debate concerns Oshri’s proposal that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Galilee rather than Bethlehem of Judea.[11] He based his argument partly on the village’s proximity to Nazareth and Tzippori and questioned the account of Mary traveling to the Judean Bethlehem; he published his findings in Archaeology in 2005, two years after completing the excavation.[11] Israel Antiquities Authority deputy director Uzi Dahari rejected a connection between the Byzantine church and Jesus, arguing that the theory lacked scientific proof and proposing Nazareth instead.[11] Oshri sought further excavation, but did not undertake it; the reported finds do not establish the village as Jesus’s birthplace.[11]