Ein Gedi (Kibbutz)

Ein Gedi combines a residential kibbutz, agricultural activity and tourist accommodation in a desert oasis setting beside the Dead Sea.[1] Its development has depended on the contrast between the surrounding hot, arid landscape and the fresh water available from local springs.[1] Tourism became the principal basis of its economy, while cultivated vegetation spread among the community’s homes to form a botanical garden.[1][3]

The original Nahal outpost stood at the foot of Mount Yishai, isolated from other Jewish settlements.[7] In 1959, residents moved from their initial location beside Nahal Arugot to a plateau at the foot of Mount Tzroya.[7] The springs supporting cultivation receive underground water from a rain-rich intake area on the western slopes of the Hebron Hills, with the water emerging along a fault line.[1]

Israeli-born youth established Ein Gedi as a Nahal military outpost in 1953, with defense as its initial function.[1] The outpost formed part of the young state’s effort to establish a presence in this remote desert area.[7] On January 10, 1956, Zalman Shazar spoke at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new kibbutz, whose young settlers belonged to the Shdemot group.[7] The civilian kibbutz was affiliated with Ihud ha-Kevuẓot ve-ha-Kibbutzim.[1]

The founders began with a few huts and faced large boulders, arid soil, oppressive summer heat and the work of building a community from scratch.[7] Winter downpours could flood the settlement and cut its access routes, making journeys outside the kibbutz lengthy undertakings.[7] Residents improvised ways across swollen streams, including crawling along a water pipe over Nahal Arugot and using heavy off-road vehicles, helicopters and a boat nicknamed “Shakh-Shakh.”[5] The move to a plateau in 1959 transferred the community away from its first site beside the river.[7]

The pioneering work at Ein Gedi received recognition in the resolutions of the 25th Zionist Congress, held in Jerusalem from December 27, 1960, to January 11, 1961.[8] The Congress listed Ein Gedi among the “new agricultural settlements in the Arava” and paid tribute to the effort involved in establishing it, Yotvata, Ein Yahav and the kibbutz in Eilat.[8]

Early access depended on connections from Sodom, south of the Dead Sea, by land or boat.[1] A 50-kilometer dirt road was vulnerable to winter flash floods; a narrow asphalt road replaced it in 1962, and a motorboat also operated between Sodom and Ein Gedi.[1] Medical care reflected this isolation: a doctor used to arrive once a week in a light Piper aircraft from Beersheba.[1] In 1971, an asphalt road northward connected Ein Gedi with Jerusalem, reducing the stated journey time to Tel Aviv from five hours to two.[1]

A retrospective account published in the Jewish Review of Books recalls a difficult journey to Ein Gedi with the poet Avrom Sutzkever and other travelers, when roads beyond Beersheba were poor and the destination lay virtually at the border with Jordan.[9] In that account, a young kibbutz member met the travelers at a gas pump and offered to guide them, assuring them that “the kibbutz would be glad to have us.”[9] The author recounts that the guide later admitted the route was a rough jeep path and that he needed a lift after missing his scheduled transportation.[9]

The same reminiscence describes a short tour of the kibbutz, swimming in the oasis pool, a visit to a cave associated in the account with King David, supper in the communal dining hall and a night on outdoor cots.[9] The author recalls that their guide advised leaving before sunrise to avoid damaging the car’s tires on the difficult route.[9]

Ein Gedi had a recorded population of 603 in 2002.[1] In October 2023, the community also accommodated evacuees from Kibbutz Be’eri, including Yigal and his family, following the October 7 attack on their kibbutz.[6] By October 26, Ein Gedi was hosting many members of the surviving Be’eri community.[6]

Ein Gedi’s early farmers turned the desert heat into a commercial advantage by producing vegetables ahead of their usual growing season.[7] Tomatoes reached markets months before the normal tomato season, while members worked in vegetable gardens and cleared, planted, weeded and harvested fields.[7] Farming methods were adapted to the combination of intense heat and abundant fresh spring water.[1]

Agricultural activities have included mango plantations, date palms and herbs, as well as bananas and early vegetables.[1][2] Other recorded branches included turkey raising.[10] Tourism later displaced some agricultural activities after the development of a guesthouse and spa associated with local thermo-mineral waters.[7] Dates, mangoes and herbs nevertheless remained among the kibbutz’s agricultural products in the period described by the 2006 retrospective.[7]

A 2006 economic breakdown put agriculture at 5 percent of net income, mineral-water production at 30 percent and tourism at 55 percent.[11] A mineral-water plant, opened in 1997 and co-owned with Jafora-Tabori, drew water from the Ein Gedi and Shulamit springs.[11] At that time, sinkholes associated with the receding Dead Sea shoreline had made formerly prosperous date-growing land unsafe or unsuitable, leading the kibbutz to stop cultivating that crop there.[11]

In July 2026, farmers began harvesting Medjool and Bahri dates from an orchard area of about 600 dunams.[12] Irrigation came from treated wastewater conveyed approximately 25 kilometers from the Ein Bokek hotel area.[12] About 30 dunams south of the kibbutz, planted roughly four years earlier, produced fruit of commercial quality for the first time that year.[12] Another approximately 450 dunams lay near Nahal Tze’elim, with roughly 300 already producing fruit for market.[12]

Ein Gedi ended communal overnight accommodation for children in 1968, according to the recollection of founder Yonki Ayalon.[13] It was probably the first kibbutz to abandon the practice of children sleeping together under supervision rather than in their parents’ homes; other kibbutzim followed within about a decade.[13]

The remote setting encouraged a distinct cultural life in which members drew on their own creative talents.[7] A Hebrew local publication, Afiḳ (אפיק), served as a leaflet of the Ein Gedi group.[14] Its digitized holdings cover January 10, 2014, through July 27, 2018, comprising 33 issues and 852 pages.[14]

The kibbutz also has a boarding school, whose director, educator Yaniv Oren, mentored young people and wrote letters to them.[4] Dudi Alon recalled of Oren, “He wrote a lot to the young people he mentored.”[4]

As tourism brought more hikers into the surrounding area, the kibbutz established one of Israel’s early volunteer rescue teams.[5] Its members were repeatedly called out to help hikers in difficulty, including during the night.[5]

The kibbutz’s guest accommodation grew from informal hospitality for visitors coming to bathe in the Dead Sea and local springs.[15][16] Visits by seven women from Rehovot in the early 1960s helped stimulate demand.[15] In 1961, two wooden cabins and shared showers were provided for vacationers, who stayed for a week and brought their own towels.[15]

The hotel was officially inaugurated in summer 1961 as the “Guesthouse for Dead Sea Bathers.”[16] Wooden huts were subsequently replaced by concrete and stone rooms, while the complex added a swimming pool, bathhouse, spa center and dining room.[16] The accommodation developed into a resort.[15]

Tourist facilities have included a resort hotel with a cactus garden and mini-zoo, together with a restaurant and a large spa across the highway supplied by natural hot springs.[10] The combination of guest accommodation and medicinal waters became central to the kibbutz’s tourism economy.[1]

Ein Gedi’s botanical garden extends through the inhabited kibbutz rather than occupying a separate, formally landscaped enclosure.[3][17] It developed from plantings intended to provide shade, with the first plants put in during 1959 and further community planting under way in 1960.[18][19] Young farmers planted flowers in small plots near their homes alongside date palms and grapefruit, and plantings were planned together with new buildings.[19][20]

Agricultural institutes from around the world later supplied specimens to test how they would fare in the desert.[20] Local gardeners introduced and cultivated unusual varieties suited to the hot climate and the oasis’s fresh water.[3] The ornamental plantings became a recognized botanical garden in 1994, described as the first of its kind within an inhabited community.[3]

The garden occupies approximately 100 dunams, or 25 acres.[1][18] Published descriptions have recorded hundreds of species, with a 2008 profile reporting more than 600 and accounts published in 2009 and 2013 reporting more than 1,000.[18][19][21] Its collections draw on plants from many regions, including cacti and succulents suited to arid conditions.[18][21]

Early planting included water-demanding trees and plants unable to withstand local conditions.[18] The garden subsequently emphasized the introduction and acclimatization of water-efficient plants, including cacti and succulents.[18] Its work has also included preserving endangered plants and cultivating plants of historical value to ancient Ein Gedi.[18] The combination of mineral-rich soil, hot summers, mild winters, sunshine and clean air supports the vegetation.[19]

Water use became a significant dispute involving the kibbutz, environmental interests, nature authorities and water regulators.[11][22] The nature reserve had expanded from Wadi David to Wadi Arugot in 1987, while local springs supplied agriculture, tourism and the mineral-water plant.[11]

A 2004 assessment estimated annual oasis water output at about 2.5 million cubic meters and consumption at about 1.5 million.[22] Its recommendations included limiting the mineral-water plant’s use of the Ein Gedi and Shulamit springs to 120,000 cubic meters annually, reserving remaining spring water for slope irrigation and vegetation restoration, and supplying the kibbutz and guesthouse from water diverted downstream.[22]

Figures supplied by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority in 2006 put kibbutz withdrawals at about 40 cubic meters per hour from springs producing a combined 60, while the authority estimated local ecological needs at at least 45.[11] A proposed arrangement would reduce the kibbutz’s direct spring intake to 15 cubic meters per hour and meet other needs with water pumped back from Nahal Arugot.[11] These figures and proposals describe the situation reported at that time.[11]

The Ein Gedi stream had dried in the 1950s after water was diverted for kibbutz agriculture.[23] Under an agreement signed in May 2007, the kibbutz was to allow water into the stream before drawing from the spring, with limits on its use.[23] Water flowed again in 2008 after the kibbutz dismantled its drawing facilities, and restoration plans included planting indigenous trees and encouraging the return of grazing animals.[23]