Masada (Kibbutz)

Masada is located in the northern Jordan Valley, south of the Sea of Galilee (Kinneret) near the meeting point of Israel's borders with Jordan and Syria.[1] Its immediate neighbor is Sha'ar HaGolan, and the nearby Yarmouk River marks the border with Jordan.[6][1] Administratively, the kibbutz falls within the Regional Council of the Jordan Valley.[4]

Archival maps held by the Central Zionist Archives place Masada and Sha'ar HaGolan near Tzemah and document their land boundaries and parcels, including distinctions among categories of land ownership.[6] The kibbutz was named for the ancient Jewish fortress of Masada.[1] Its name also belongs to the Hebrew cultural setting shaped by Yitzhak Lamdan's poem "Masada," published in 1926; the kibbutz retained the Hebrew spelling מסדה after the spelling מצדה became more common for the ancient site.[2]

Masada was established in the Jordan Valley in March 1937 by members of a Romanian Gordonia pioneering group.[1][2] The group had first formed in Hadera before establishing an independent settlement on its own land. A memorial account states: "Kvutza Massada was founded in Hadera and established on its own soil, becoming an independent settlement in 1937."[3]

Some of the future founders had roots in earlier preparatory training. A Gordonia history traces members to a farm called Masada near Belz in 1930 and 1931, where pioneering training took place.[7] Dov Dori joined the Gordonia group in Hadera after making aliyah in 1932, while Eliyahu Bitchutsky, later known as Eliyahu Naor, and Yisaschar Rosenthal traveled to the Jordan Valley and were among the kibbutz's founders.[7] Two groups subsequently united as Kibbutz Masada before settling in the Jordan Valley in 1937.[7]

The kibbutz was built using the "Tower and Stockade" (Homa u-Migdal) method. Materials were transported to the site, where the settlement's outer wall, watchtower, and initial buildings were erected rapidly; the community later expanded beyond the stockade.[1] Masada and Sha'ar HaGolan were among the early Tower and Stockade settlements near the meeting point of the borders with Jordan and Syria. A Ynet historical feature characterized their establishment as fixing the Yarmouk River as a political and security boundary and compelling the British government to respect agreements concluded with France in 1923 and approved by the League of Nations in 1934.[1]

Eitan Harari, identified as one of the kibbutz's first four children, was born in 1934 while the group was still in Hadera, three years before it settled in the Jordan Valley.[3]

Masada's location near the Syrian and Jordanian borders placed it directly in the path of the Syrian advance during the 1948 War of Independence. On May 18, 1948, Syrian forces entered Masada and Sha'ar HaGolan after fighting in the area.[1]

Children and other noncombatants were evacuated, while members of the kibbutzim fought in defense of their homes.[3][1] A separate historical account reports that, after Syrian forces captured Samakh, members of Masada and Sha'ar HaGolan withdrew to nearby Kibbutz Afikim without authorization from Haganah headquarters and that local Arabs then looted the abandoned sites. The same account describes a severe decline in morale among settlements of the lower Jordan Valley.[8]

Syrian forces briefly held the kibbutzim, which were looted and badly damaged. Israeli forces returned within several days, and Masada and Sha'ar HaGolan were subsequently rehabilitated and rebuilt.[3][1]

In the spring of 1968, a vehicle carrying agricultural workers struck a mine in Masada's fields. A memorial account dates the incident to March 29, 1968, and records that four people—Eliyahu Naor, Dov Dori, Avraham Stoller, and Chanan Sigali—were killed as they returned from work toward breakfast.[3]

An editorial note in a separate Gordonia history gives the Gregorian date as March 20, 1968, and names Dori, Naor, and Stoller, describing the mine as having been set by Arab terrorists.[7] Both accounts associate the attack with 29 Adar 5728, but they differ in their Gregorian dates and in the number of victims named. Dori and Naor had helped establish Masada and remained active in its agricultural, cultural, communal, and security life.[3][7]

Masada continued as an agricultural cooperative in the Jordan Valley in the decades after the War of Independence. An Encyclopedia.com settlement table records a population of 289 for Massadah on December 31, 2004.[4]

In January 2003, Ynet reported that 42 sons and daughters of kibbutz members had been admitted to membership as part of an effort to reverse demographic decline.[5] Masada had previously had 105 members, making the new cohort nearly 30 percent of the enlarged membership. Community manager Nir Mencher said the principal aim was to rejuvenate the population and reverse a trend the kibbutz had been unable to address in preceding years. He also explained that not all the new members were yet living in Masada and that additional housing would be needed.[5]

From its early decades, Masada functioned as a cooperative community whose members participated in communal labor as well as cultural and security activities.[3] Agriculture formed the backbone of the kibbutz's economy, with banana cultivation playing a prominent role. Dov Dori devoted himself to banana growing from his first year in the settlement, and Eliyahu Naor worked initially as a baker before moving into the banana sector.[3]

An archival document held by the American Jewish Archives describes Masada as one of the Jordan Valley's more established kibbutzim.[9] In the undated snapshot, its population was given as approximately 420 residents, including 100 children. The document also states that the kibbutz practiced varied agriculture, operated a regional trucking fleet, and held a partnership in the nearby Sefen Formica plant, which it described as Israel's largest such facility.[9]

A 1942 photograph cataloged by the National Library of Israel and attributed to Masada member Yosef Shen offers a glimpse of the community during the Mandate period. Its catalog caption identifies people in the group including Yael Shen Menzer and Assaf Shor, both described as Masada members.[10]