Hogla, Israel

Hogla is located within the Emek Hefer Regional Council in the Sharon coastal plain.[1] The broader Emek Hefer valley lies between the cities of Netanya and Hadera, with the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the Samarian hills to the east.[4] The terrain varies across the valley: kurkar cliffs and sand dominate the western coastal strip, a central band of red sandy soil proved historically well suited to citrus cultivation, and terra rossa soil in the eastern reaches supports general agriculture.[4]

Orchards and cultivated fields characterize the rural landscape surrounding Hogla.[3] This agricultural setting links the moshav to a regional geography whose distinct soil zones historically supported citrus cultivation and other forms of agriculture.[4]

Emek Hefer, the valley in which Hogla stands, was historically known as Wadi Hawarith — a swampy, malaria-affected region.[4] Its transformation into a zone of Jewish agricultural settlement began in 1927, when Yehoshua Hankin purchased its lands on behalf of the Jewish National Fund with funds raised from Canadian Jewish communities.[4] The first settlement group reached the valley in 1930, and Kfar Vitkin, founded in 1933, became the valley's first moshav.[4] Emek Hefer was constituted as a regional council in 1940, described as the first such council established in the country.[4]

Hogla itself was founded in 1933, the same year as Kfar Vitkin, making it one of the earliest moshavim in the valley.[1][2] A 1945 Palestine village-statistics table for the Tulkarm sub-district records a locality called Hogla with a total population of 210 Arab residents, no Jewish residents, and total land of 1,587 dunums — of which 1,483 dunums were classified as Arab-owned and 104 dunums as Jewish-owned.[6] This entry uses a different historical classification framework than the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, which independently records 1933 as Hogla's year of Jewish settlement; the two records reflect different administrative contexts and should not be conflated.[2][6]

Hogla is classified as a moshav affiliated with the Emek Hefer Regional Council.[1][3] The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics assigns it locality code 0205 and records a population of 772 at 31 December, together with central grid reference 1932796992. The table places the locality in natural region 41 and local-authorities cluster 16.[2] An earlier figure from 2004 recorded 487 inhabitants.[1]

In the Central Bureau of Statistics' 2019 socioeconomic-index assessment, Hogla was ranked 847 out of 995 localities, with a socioeconomic index value of approximately 1.44 and an index population of 310.[7] That index population excludes residents of nursing homes, penitentiary institutions, and similar facilities, and therefore does not represent the locality's full residential count.[7] The locality was assigned to cluster 9 in both the 2017 and 2019 assessments.[7]

JewishGen's Jewish Online Worldwide Burial Registry lists two cemeteries associated with Hogla, with a combined total of 777 recorded burials.[8] Hogla Cemetery alone accounts for 317 burials, all of which have corresponding photographs in the registry.[8]

Economic and cultural activity in Hogla operates within the moshav's agricultural setting. A 2026 report described Loka, a coffee cart operating inside a field in Moshav Hogla, as well as a jewelry studio and a workshop-oriented studio in the locality.[3] Together, these examples document small-scale food, craft, and cultural businesses embedded in the rural community.[3]

The report portrays Hogla as part of a wider Emek Hefer visitor landscape of orchards, fields, rural settlements, and Mediterranean access.[3] In Hogla, commercial activity located among cultivated fields reflects a blend of agriculture, recreation, and local entrepreneurship rather than a separate urban center.[3]

At Einot Hogla in Emek Hefer lies the Emek Hefer Bird Park, whose official name is Agmon Emek Hefer.[9] The park covers 300 dunams on land formerly used as fish ponds by Kibbutz Ein HaHoresh, adjacent to Nahal Alexander.[9] It was established at the initiative of the Sharon Drainage and Rivers Authority, with landscape design by architect Lior Løvenger of Studio Urbanof.[9]

The park opened in 2017 with free admission after approximately a year and a half of development work.[9] Its infrastructure includes walking paths, around ten benches, one observation deck, and six bird-observation hides.[9] Variable water levels across the site create five distinct habitats, complemented by vegetation and small islands intended to provide shelter, food sources, and nesting opportunities for birds; the overall aim was to establish a nesting and migratory stopover site.[9]

The project carried a stated budget of 6.5 million shekels, funded through a 2-million-shekel donation from JNF-KKL Canada, 4 million shekels from the Open Spaces Fund, and planning financing from Israel's Ministry of Environmental Protection.[9]