Nahshon, Israel

Nahshon lies in the Judean Foothills, in the High Shephelah where the hills begin to rise toward the Jerusalem Mountains.[1][2] It has locality code 777 and is listed in the Jerusalem District under the Mateh Yehuda Regional Council.[3][6] The 2004 place register records its affiliation as "KA," the code it defines for Ha-Kibbutz ha-Artzi, associated with Hashomer Hatzair.[1]

Kibbutz Nahshon was established in 1950 by members of Hashomer Hatzair, a Socialist-Zionist youth movement.[4][2] It took its name from Operation Nahshon.[2]

The kibbutz's early development was shaped by the territorial situation following the 1948 War of Independence. After Israel and Jordan failed to agree on a border in the Latrun area, a stretch of land remained a no-man's-land. In 1950, Nahshon's founding members settled on a hill south of the nearby Trappist monastery and began cultivating parts of this zone. Their principal agricultural tract, known as "Plot Five," was leased from the monastery; the site is now occupied by Mini Israel.[7]

Before the June 1967 war, two Egyptian commando battalions, numbered 33 and 53 and comprising about 700 men, were positioned near the area now occupied by Mevo Horon. Their planned raids relied partly on outdated maps. When Israeli forces captured the Latrun salient and the commandos moved into Israeli territory, parts of the Egyptian force became isolated in the Latrun and Ayalon Valley area.[7]

Fighting broke out in the fields near Nahshon. Children were moved to shelters, women treated wounded people and served as observers, and men took up arms.[7] Dan Meir later recalled seeing a burning MX tank arrive at the kibbutz with a crewman signaling from its turret after the tank had been attacked.[7] The main fighting around the kibbutz lasted about three days. By June 9, the commandos remaining in the field had been killed or had escaped; the investigation also reported that several dozen were captured during the wider fighting.[7]

In one incident, two Egyptian commandos barricaded themselves in a pillbox from a former British detention camp and fired at passing traffic. After mortar fire prompted their surrender, they were taken to a kibbutz nurse. While one was being treated, he pointed toward his shoulders; when his shirt was opened, two booby-trapped grenades were found under his arms, arranged to explode if he raised his hands.[7]

The 2004 Encyclopaedia Judaica place register recorded 380 inhabitants in Nahshon on December 31 of that year.[1] The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics reported a population of 602 in 2021.[3] In 2025, Nahshon was described as having 600 kibbutz members.[5] That membership figure is not necessarily identical to the settlement's total resident population.

As of 2025, Nahshon was described as a privatized veteran kibbutz with diversified agricultural and commercial activity.[5] Its crops included almonds, chickpeas, wheat, and grapes supplied to Barkan wineries. It also operated one of Israel's large broiler farms and received rental income from the land used by the Mini Israel tourist park.[5]

The kibbutz is also associated with Aran, a manufacturer of aseptic packaging for the food industry. Founded in 1983, Aran operated factories at Nahshon, in Spain, and in South Carolina. In 2025, its Nahshon plant employed 110 people, including 20 kibbutz members; the company was reported to hold about 6–7 percent of the global aseptic-packaging market and to generate annual sales of approximately $80 million.[5]

A government survey of 2017 non-potable water consumption recorded 1,851.6 thousand cubic meters for Nahshon, of which the table placed 1,759.3 thousand cubic meters in the agricultural category.[6]

Nahshon is surrounded by hiking trails and natural landscapes.[2] Kafe Nahshon operates on the kibbutz as an outdoor coffee cart with seating, parking, and a nearby playground; a 2026 travel feature listed its opening days as Wednesday through Friday.[2] The nearby Sorek Winery, founded in 1994, hosts monthly tastings and production tours.[2] Mini Israel, built on kibbutz-owned land, is another major visitor destination in the area.[7][5]

A contested element of Nahshon's wartime history concerns witness accounts that Egyptian soldiers killed during the Six-Day War were collected and buried near the kibbutz, including in or near Plot Five. A 1967 kibbutz culture-committee booklet described a mass grave, but later accounts differed over its precise location, whether there was one large grave or several burial sites, and whether all the bodies were collected. Estimates of Egyptian commando deaths in the broader Latrun–Ayalon Valley area ranged from about 70 to 100.[7] Witness Ze'ev Bloch defended the burial: "I think we did the right thing. What, leave bodies in the field for the birds to eat?"[7]

In 1999, the IDF searched for the alleged grave using aerial photographs and ultrasound surveys but did not excavate. An IDF statement said the search found no evidence that Egyptian dead had been buried at the site, while the IDF Archive said it had located no publicly accessible documentation concerning such burials. The investigation was blocked in its entirety by the military censor in 1999 and cleared for publication in 2022.[7]