Kerem Ben Zimra

Kerem Ben Zimra sits at an elevation of approximately 850 meters above sea level, at the northern edge of the Ramat Dalton plateau in the Eastern Upper Galilee.[9][8] The moshav lies about 4,100 meters from the Lebanese border.[2]

The surrounding landscape contains thousands of dunams of vineyards and orchards bearing apples, pears, peaches, and plums. A 2017 travel report characterized the local soil as particularly well suited to wine grapes.[6] The National Library of Israel's catalog also lists a topographic map sheet covering Jish, Kerem Ben Zimra, and Bar'am.[10]

Kerem Ben Zimra was established in 1949 by the Mizrachi movement.[3][4] A Sefaria educational sheet describes its founding population as immigrants from Turkey, Egypt, and Libya, joined by Holocaust survivors from Romania and converts to Judaism from the Italian village of San Nicandro.[3] The community was named for the Talmudic sages Zimra and his son Yosi, who were believed to be buried in the area.[4]

The same educational sheet says Rabbi Meir Yehuda Getz came to the moshav with a group of immigrants and founded a religious agricultural school there.[3] It explains that he chose to live in a border-area community to strengthen frontier settlements and encourage new immigrants living in the country's periphery.[3] According to the sheet, his attachment to Kerem Ben Zimra endured throughout his life: he left one will for his family and another for the residents of the moshav.[3]

Kerem Ben Zimra's recorded population was 294 in 1968 and 401 on 31 December 2004.[1][4] The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics locality file recorded 535 residents in 2022, including 534 people in its “Jews” category.[5] The locality is represented in the Merom HaGalil Regional Council.[1][5]

Agriculture, particularly viticulture, has long formed the economic backbone of Kerem Ben Zimra. The moshav has been known for decades for the quality of its wine grapes grown in the Ramat Dalton terroir.[7] The Bozo family, who moved to the moshav in the 1950s, held about 700 dunams of vineyard and had grown grapes for more than 40 years.[7][8]

Sources describe the founding of Ben Zimra Winery differently. A 2023 Globes profile says moshav native Yossi Ashkenazi established the boutique winery in the early 2000s using the Bozo family's grapes, while a 2026 mako report dates its founding to 2003 and attributes it to the Bozo family.[7][8] Following financial difficulties and the dissolution of a partnership in 2019, the winery remained with the Bozo family.[7] In its family-operated phase, about 40 tons of fruit—roughly seven percent of the family vineyard's crop—were used to produce approximately 40,000 bottles annually.[7] The winery focuses on producing wine from vineyard to bottle, and its visitor center has served as a primary source of income.[2][8]

Rimon Winery is also located in Kerem Ben Zimra. It is a family winery producing pomegranate wine rather than grape wine, and its visitor center offers tastings and natural cosmetics made with pomegranate extract.[11] Beyond vineyards, the surrounding farms grow apples, pears, peaches, and plums, with late summer marking the beginning of the grape harvest and the final seasonal picking of some orchard fruits.[6]

Ein Alvah is a shallow spring east of the moshav, between vineyards, whose water flows into Nahal Gush Halav. A one-kilometer path from Kerem Ben Zimra reaches the spring; visitors can also drive about 600 meters along the community fence to a signed gate.[11]

From a hill above Gush Halav, Kerem Ben Zimra is visible to the northeast across Nahal Gush Halav, with the Hermon range visible in the same direction.[9] At night, the lights of the moshav can also be seen from the Nahal Dishon campsite alongside those of Alma and Rihaniya.[3]

Kerem Ben Zimra has a cemetery listed in JewishGen's Northern District small-community cemetery category. In data reported online as of 30 December 2023, the registry listed 104 indexed burials and 104 photographs.[12] These are registry figures and should not be read as a stated total for the cemetery.

In April 2024, ynet reported that Kerem Ben Zimra was not classified as an officially evacuated area despite sitting about 4,100 meters from the Lebanese border and being exposed to Hezbollah shelling.[13] The distinction left residents and business owners exposed to wartime security threats without the same compensation arrangements available in formally evacuated communities.[13]

Tourism and lodging businesses in the moshav had been shut for about six months by the time of the report, and Ben Zimra Winery's visitor center—its main source of income—was closed.[2][13] Winemaker Hila Bozo and her family left without an official evacuation order, taking their four children elsewhere to provide greater normality, while her husband and father-in-law continued working in agricultural fields near Dovev.[13] The family's visitor center and home faced the Lebanese village of Maroun al-Ras, and the home had no protected room.[13] The winery and visitor center had received no state compensation for four months as of the report's publication.[13] Bozo summarized the contrast: “It's like life here is normal, but we're falling apart.”[2]

A 2025 Jerusalem Post travel article reported that Rimon Winery winemaker Moradi Nahmias had stayed alone in the village “during the war” to protect the winery, without specifying the dates of that period.[11]