Maoz Haim

Maoz Haim sits in the Beit She'an Valley, roughly five kilometers east of the city of Beit She'an and close to the Jordan River.[1][2] The kibbutz is near the Jordan River Crossing, with Superbus Line 16 serving the Maoz Haim junction approximately one kilometer from the border terminal. A private, fee-charging parking lot operated by the kibbutz is adjacent to the crossing.[7] The surrounding valley was historically characterized by swamps, which early settlers worked to drain as part of the broader Zionist agricultural enterprise in the region.[8]

Maoz Haim was founded in 1937 by a group of young locally born settlers. A 1971 UJA study booklet placed it among the Tower and Stockade settlements, which it characterized as communities established immediately on isolated land purchased from Arabs in order to establish a Jewish presence.[3] Archival collections at the National Library of Israel document the settlement enterprise alongside the draining of the Beit She'an Valley swamps and the introduction of Hebrew labor in the fields.[8]

Among the kibbutz's recognized founders was Avital Dafna, who joined after coming under the influence of the Hahugim movement at Herzliya Gymnasium and went with his wife, Malka (née Breznik), to establish Maoz Haim in 1937.[9] Avshalom Yaakovi is also identified as a founder. In 1932, he and other members of the Hugim group moved to Ben Shemen to study agriculture; their later journeys included a 1933 Hermon trip that continued to Damascus and a 1934 trip around the Dead Sea.[10] Tzipora Yaakobi immigrated to Palestine in 1933 and remained a kibbutz member until her death, working in the vegetable garden, poultry house, children's houses, household administration, and accounting.[8]

The settlement was originally called Kibbutz Maoz. A year after its founding it was renamed Maoz Haim to commemorate Haim Sturman, a Haganah leader and co-founder of Kibbutz Ein Harod in the Jezreel Valley.[2] Sturman was born in Ukraine, immigrated to Palestine in 1906, and joined Hashomer in Hadera at age 18. He later became a central figure in the defense of Jewish settlements in the Harod area during the 1936–38 Arab riots.[11][2] On September 14, 1938, he and two companions were killed when their vehicle struck a road mine near the Arab village of Samaria as they returned from the Tower and Stockade settlement of Tirat Zevi.[11][2] A sign at the kibbutz entrance commemorates its namesake.[2]

Memorial-book accounts preserved by JewishGen record further dimensions of the settlement's early years. One biography describes Zvi and Pinkovsky being sent to guard the farm when it was settled during the Homa u'Migdal period, with Zvi serving as a supernumerary constable.[12] A separate account by Gershon Shachar describes his group's intention to join Kibbutz Ma'oz Haim. Shachar recounted arriving in Mandatory Palestine aboard the freighter Atrato on May 28, 1939, being intercepted by British forces and taken to the Atlit detention camp, and being allowed to remain after intervention by the Jewish Agency.[1]

During Israel's War of Independence, Maoz Haim served as a burial site for soldiers killed in battle. An IDF investigation begun in 2020, involving document analysis, witness interviews, soil analysis, and archaeological surveys, concluded that Pvt. Dov Parmet, killed on June 5, 1948, had been buried in a mass grave at the kibbutz alongside 16 other soldiers who fell in the 1948 battles at Malkia. The IDF said a headstone bearing Parmet's name would be added to the kibbutz's military cemetery.[13]

From the Six-Day War until the subsequent cease-fire, Maoz Haim was subjected to sustained Jordanian terrorist shelling, forcing the kibbutz's children to sleep in shelters every night.[3] In October 1967 the kibbutz's electric generator was blown up and the dining hall was damaged; overall property damage during the three years following the war was described as heavy.[3] A soldier was killed near the kibbutz in June 1969, and rocket attacks were launched against it almost daily during the summer of 1970.[3] These attacks placed Maoz Haim on the front line of Israel's security challenges in the Jordan Valley during one of the most dangerous periods following statehood.

Published figures provide snapshots of Maoz Haim's changing population rather than a current count. A 1971 UJA booklet reported approximately 500 residents, including children.[3] In 2014, N12 reported that the population had grown by one-third following the kibbutz's renewal and that the average age had fallen by 20 years, from 60 to 40. The report said 25 new members had joined that year and another 20 were expected by the end of the year.[5]

In the early 1970s, Maoz Haim's agricultural activities encompassed fish ponds, fodder crops, orchards, and poultry.[3] The kibbutz also operated a plastics factory called Ko-li-raz, which sold products domestically and exported them abroad.[3]

A 2009 Calcalist report said Maoz Haim had accumulated 70 million shekels in debt to banks and a regional purchasing corporation, while two plants—Poliraz, which made plastic products, and the Arizim packaging plant—were unprofitable.[14] Banks had frozen the kibbutz's credit after it stopped making regular interest payments and conditioned debt negotiations on a change in its operating model.[14] Community services had been privatized roughly 15 years earlier, but proposals for full privatization and a differential operating model had repeatedly failed. A 75% member majority was required, while only 70% had been secured.[14] At the time, 199 members were relying on limited credit from the regional purchasing corporation.[14]

Maoz Haim endured a severe economic and ideological crisis during the 1980s and 1990s, when many sons left and some of those who remained did so reluctantly. Longtime resident Moshon Mor recalled the period starkly: "In those years when everyone left there was nothing here, the place was empty of content, there was no reason to live."[5]

By 2014, N12 reported that the kibbutz's move toward a privatized cooperative structure—described as becoming a "renewing kibbutz"—gave new members economic independence while retaining collective responsibility for health, education, and community welfare.[5] Raviv and Janet Moore were expected to move into the first house built in Maoz Haim in four decades.[5]

Not all veteran members embraced the transition. Yiftah Ofek acknowledged the difficulty, saying, "I admit that we failed. The kibbutz does not manage itself," and described internal disputes and resistance to authority as persistent obstacles.[5] After the renewal took hold, however, he expressed relief at seeing families and children return and at once again having people with whom to share holidays and daily life.[5] N12 framed this intergenerational renewal against the community's longer role in sustaining Jewish settlement in the Jordan Valley.[5]

Despite the hardships of frontier life, Maoz Haim fostered a rich internal culture. Avital Dafna, one of the founders, wrote songs for kibbutz holidays and events, held key leadership positions, served as the kibbutz's photographer, and for many years edited the members' newspaper, La-Haverim.[9]

The kibbutz also figures in the history of Israeli children's music. In 1942, educator and poet Moshe Dafna was visiting his family at Maoz Haim when he observed his three-year-old grandson Ehud, son of Avital, repeatedly asking "why." The encounter inspired him to write the children's song "Hudi Humudi," originally titled Lama? ("Why?"). He later approached composer Nahum Nardi, and singer Esther Gamlielit became the song's first performer.[15]

In 1974, work to construct a military outpost west of the kibbutz exposed mosaic fragments at an ancient synagogue site. Avshalom Yaakovi, a kibbutz founder and amateur student of the land, noticed fragments resembling a menorah and carefully excavated them by hand, leading to a halt in the construction work. The Israel Antiquities Authority subsequently conducted formal excavations at the site.[6]

The Ynet report is internally inconsistent about the remains' date: its introduction places them in the fourth to sixth centuries CE, while its body dates the Jewish settlement to the third century and says the synagogue was established late in that century.[6] According to the body of the report, the synagogue served the community for more than 300 years before a fire destroyed it along with the settlement. In a later building phase, the synagogue was renewed in basilica style, with an apse oriented toward Jerusalem and a mosaic floor decorated with a bird, clusters of grapes, and a yellow fruit believed to be an etrog.[6] Despite the dating discrepancy, the site documents Jewish communal and religious life in the Beit She'an Valley centuries before the modern kibbutz was established.