Kfar Galim

Kfar Galim is a youth village near the coastal town of Atlit.[1] Its recorded educational identity includes agricultural and maritime work documented in a 1996 retrospective volume.[2] The village has also hosted a Chabad youth-training course and, beginning with plans announced in 2023, the development of a Kraft-backed sports campus.[1][3]

A 1996 retrospective publication records 30 years of educational work at Kfar Galim and is cataloged under agricultural and maritime education in Israel.[2] The Hebrew volume, titled גלים שבלב: 30 שנות עבודה חינוכית בכפר גלים (Galim Shebalev: 30 Years of Educational Work at Kfar Galim), was edited by Avraham Miron and published by Sh. Gal-On in Kfar Tavor.[2] It comprises 276 pages plus eight plates, with illustrations and portraits, and lists the Kfar Galim Association as an additional creator.[2]

When sports-campus plans were announced in June 2023, Kfar Galim enrolled 1,800 students.[3] The figure reflects the scale of the youth village's educational community at that time.

As part of its role as an educational setting, Kfar Galim hosted a Chabad youth program designed to prepare children as potential future emissaries of the Rabbi of Lubavitch.[1] Approximately 150 children between the ages of 9 and 13 participated, staying at the village for more than two weeks without returning home.[1] Their days included lectures, field trips, swimming, and practical activities related to emissary work, including helping the poor and learning how to organize Passover Seders for Israeli backpackers abroad.[1]

The program adopted military-style structure and terminology: participants were called soldiers and organized into three regiments comprising nine companies, with rules, ranks, discipline manuals, and individual folders.[4] A notebook given to recruits stated, “You have joined Hashem's army. The Jewish army is like any other army.”[4] The daily schedule began with a 7:15 a.m. wake-up, after which the children marched to a mikveh, recited the Morning Prayer, saluted a portrait of the Rabbi of Lubavitch, raised a flag, and recited twelve designated verses across morning and evening parades.[4]

Described as the first course of its kind, it was designed and run by Chabad's youth organization under Rabbi Joseph Isaac Aharonov.[1] Its stated goals included instilling the essence of emissary work, educating the next generation of Chabad leadership, cultivating love of Israel, and building a pool of potential future emissaries. The children could formally become emissaries only later, after marriage and subject to their wishes and the required criteria.[1]

In June 2023, plans were announced for a major sports campus at Kfar Galim, enabled by a reported NIS 18 million donation from New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.[3] The donation was intended to benefit students of the Carmel Coast Regional Council through sport.[3] The facility, named the Kraft Family Sports Campus Kfar Galim, was then expected to open approximately two years after the announcement.[3]

The design called for a full-size American football field, a synthetic-grass field suitable for football and soccer, two running tracks, two studio halls for classes and fitness activities, night lighting, judges' and trainers' rooms, a 350-seat grandstand, offices, a video room, dressing rooms, and a pedestrian thoroughfare.[3] The project was presented as a collaboration among Kfar Galim, the Carmel Coast Regional Council, the Kraft family, and American Football in Israel, with the aim of making the village a regional and national center for competitive sports.[3]

Although the 2023 announcement projected an opening around 2025, a September 6, 2026 report stated that construction was underway on a new football facility at Kfar Galim.[5] The facility was described as intended to give clubs and players across the Carmel region and northern Israel access to permanent football infrastructure and to help American Football in Israel expand beyond Jerusalem.[5]