Kfar HaNassi

Kfar HaNassi sits in the eastern Upper Galilee on a hilltop overlooking the Galilee hills to the south, with the Syrian border to the north.[3] It is located 35 km north of the Sea of Galilee and 6 km east of Rosh Pinna, near a hilly section of the Jordan River.[1]

The kibbutz falls under the authority of the Upper Galilee Regional Council.[1]

Kfar HaNassi was established in 1948, shortly after the creation of the State of Israel.[3] Its founders were predominantly British Jewish immigrants who had belonged to Habonim, a Zionist youth movement, with a Manchester group forming the kibbutz's nucleus.[3] Australian members of Habonim were also among the founders.[8] The kibbutz was initially named Kibbutz HaBonim, reflecting its founders' movement affiliation, before being renamed Kfar HaNassi — meaning "Village of the President" — in honor of Chaim Weizmann, Israel's first president.[1][2] By 1971, it was recorded as affiliated with Ihud HaK'vutzot V'haKibbutzim, one of the major kibbutz federations of the period.[2]

A founding-era recollection emphasizes the dangers of the kibbutz's early decades. Moshe Ben Haim recalled that Kfar HaNassi was continually shelled from Syria during its first 19 years.[5] In the cited account, this appears as Ben Haim's recollection rather than an independently corroborated finding. A separate memoir describes an agricultural community whose membership was largely connected by origins in England and participation in Habonim.[3]

In 2007, Kfar HaNassi had 300 members, alongside many kibbutz-born children and a large group of other residents living on the premises.[1] Its total population reached 835 in 2015.[1]

Kibbutz life at Kfar HaNassi has historically reflected collective principles. Moshe Ben Haim illustrated its equal-pay ideal by saying that the person who negotiates a million-pound factory deal and the person who cleans the basin receive the same amount; he added that "they are content to do so."[5]

A 2019 profile of one family living at Kfar HaNassi described their reasons for choosing the kibbutz: proximity to relatives, a quieter environment, and space to raise their child. They rented a three-room ground-level home with a large yard and views toward Mount Hermon and the Golan Heights. The family praised mutual assistance, safe space for children, and kibbutz education connected with nature, while identifying limited employment, transportation, and medical access as regional challenges.[9] The profile also showed that employment could be found outside the kibbutz, with family members working in nearby Rosh Pinna.[9]

Habonim was founded in 1949 and based at Kfar HaNassi.[7] The company manufactures valves and actuators for industrial sectors including chemicals, oil, and gas, and most of its sales were reported to be to customers outside Israel.[7]

A September 2019 report said Tene Investment Funds was nearing a deal to acquire a 74% stake in Habonim for NIS 100 million, based on a company valuation of NIS 130 million.[7] In April 2022, the American industrial conglomerate ITT acquired Habonim in an all-cash transaction valued at $140 million.[6] At the time, Habonim employed 200 people and maintained operations in Israel, the United States, and the Netherlands.[6] The acquisition integrated Habonim into ITT's Industrial Process segment.[6] Its development from a kibbutz-based manufacturer into an international company acquired for nine figures is a notable example of industrial enterprise in northern Israel.

Kfar HaNassi has also maintained its own community publication, Divre ha-Kefar (דברי הכפר), a Hebrew-language periodical whose catalogued archive at the National Library of Israel spans from April 11, 1952, to March 24, 2023.[4]

Published accounts identify several facilities within Kfar HaNassi. Habonim's factory is based at the kibbutz, where the valve and actuator manufacturer developed before its 2022 acquisition by ITT.[6][7] A reunion visitor also recorded guest quarters and a dining hall he described as "very up-to-date."[3]

Kfar HaNassi has attracted well-known visitors and volunteers over the decades. In 2019, the kibbutz movement's secretary general said that Boris Johnson had volunteered at Kfar HaNassi in the 1980s and worked in its fields.[10] He described the wider kibbutz volunteer program as a public-diplomacy tool.[10]

In May 1978, playwright Harold Pinter and Lady Antonia Fraser arrived unannounced at Kfar HaNassi to visit Pinter's cousin, Moshe Ben Haim, born Morrie Tober, who had helped found the kibbutz in 1948 after serving in the British Army during the Second World War.[5] The cousins had not seen one another for 30 years.[5] The account compares their unexpected arrival with the family visit at the center of Pinter's play The Homecoming.[5]