Harel, Israel

Harel combines an agricultural economy with sites commemorating the fighters who established it and the battles on the road to Jerusalem.[1][3] It is described as being in the Jerusalem corridor, while a 2004 locality list classified it in the Judean Foothills and placed it within the Mateh Yehuda Regional Council.[1][2] The kibbutz lies near Latrun; route directions from the Latrun interchange pass its entrance before reaching Mitzpe Harel.[4]

Mitzpe Harel overlooks an area where battles were fought along the road to Jerusalem, and its entrance is off Route 44 between Kibbutz Harel and Moshav Taoz.[3] From the lookout, visitors can see the route known to Harel Brigade fighters as the Harel Road and commonly known today as the Burma Road.[5]

Harel was founded in October 1948, near the end of the War of Independence, by fighters of the Harel Brigade, which had originated in the Palmach.[3] Its first settlers had fought in the surrounding area and in Jerusalem, and immigrants from various countries subsequently joined them.[1] The kibbutz was affiliated with Kibbutz Artzi–Hashomer Hatzair.[1]

The founders selected the location in connection with their brigade’s wartime history.[5] Fighting had taken place at the site four months before the kibbutz’s establishment.[1] Artist Danny Karavan, one of the founders, recalled going with his group to a hilltop opposite Latrun, beside the abandoned village of Beit Jiz.[6] He painted the surrounding scenery and abandoned village buildings; one painting, depicting a cactus fruit among objects found there, was titled “Abandoned Still Life.”[6]

The nearby Burma Road opened an alternative approach to Jerusalem during the war.[4] In late May 1948, after Seventh Brigade soldiers captured Beit Jiz and Beit Susin near Latrun, a passable corridor was identified between them.[4] Three Harel Brigade soldiers later tested the route on foot while on leave.[4] Their crossing led to the development of a jeep track when attacks had made the regular road nearly impassable.[4] The alternative route bypassed the main road and helped restore supplies to besieged Jerusalem.[5] Because Seventh Brigade fighters also helped break through it, it was called Route 7 as well as the Harel Road.[5] The name Burma Road referred to the wartime route between Burma and China.[4]

Early life in the kibbutz involved demanding physical work.[7] Founder Eli Shimoni recalled: “At Harel we worked very hard but ate fever,” adding that “the sense of mission and standing firm outweighed the difficulties.”[7] He was sent from the kibbutz to study construction and later headed its construction branch.[7]

In 1955, the leadership of the Kibbutz Artzi movement decided to dissolve the kibbutz.[8] Karavan later recalled the decision as punishment for the founders’ political opinions, saying that the leadership regarded them as a subversive element.[8] Harel is again described as a kibbutz in records for the mid-1990s and 2002, though the intervening institutional history is not detailed.[1][8]

During the May 2019 fires, residents were evacuated and spent the weekend away from their homes.[9] At least ten homes were reported damaged, including five burned to the ground, while fields, the swimming pool, and other public areas also sustained damage.[9] Workshops and warehouses burned as well, and some residents returned the following morning to destroyed homes.[10] No loss of life was reported.[9] A resident named Naama, whose house had burned completely, described her situation by saying, “I have nothing after yesterday.”[10]

Harel’s population was estimated at approximately 70 in the mid-1990s and had risen to 145 by 2002.[1] A locality list recorded 146 inhabitants on December 31, 2004.[2] In 2019, about 50 families were reported to be living in the kibbutz.[9]

Harel’s agriculture has included deciduous-fruit orchards, field crops, and grapevines.[1] The kibbutz also established a winery with a private investor to produce wine from its grapes and owned a guesthouse with 33 rooms.[1] Carob plantations and extensive forests were recorded in its vicinity.[1]

Vineyards associated with the kibbutz were planted from 1998 through a joint initiative involving winemaker Eyal Rotem and the kibbutz.[11] The nearby Clos de Gat winery was established around an old stone building that had served as Harel Brigade commander Yitzhak Rabin’s headquarters in 1948.[11] The building was used during Operation Harel, and vineyards were planted around it.[12] An ancient winepress, reported to be approximately 3,000 years old, was discovered at the site.[11]

Karavan’s paintings provide an artistic record of the landscape encountered by the founding group.[6] His recollections connect his early work at Harel with the hilltop setting, the neighboring abandoned buildings, and objects he found there.[6]

The memorial at Mitzpe Harel commemorates 17 fighters from the groups that established the kibbutz who fell in the War of Independence.[3] It stands at the site of the kibbutz’s first buildings, in a hilltop grove overlooking the wartime approaches to Jerusalem.[3] The monument is a roughly three-meter-high square structure built of heavy stones, accompanied by a stone-paved area and a marble plaque bearing the Palmach emblem and details of those commemorated.[3]

A separate lookout in the kibbutz commemorates Reserve Sergeant Major Ido Kaslasi, a Maglan reservist killed on October 11, 2023.[13] Kaslasi worked in Harel’s field crops and also operated a food truck.[13] The lookout faces agricultural land he worked, including a plot he had tended three days before the war.[13]

On the morning of October 7, 2023, Kaslasi was at home with his two brothers, both also fighters.[13] After hearing the first reports from communities near Gaza, he gathered equipment and left to defend the country before receiving a formal call-up order.[13] Ido’s Trail, a short path through natural woodland at the foot of the lookout, recounts his story.[13]