Nehalim

Nehalim is situated in Israel's Central District, in the Petah Tikva Subdistrict, and falls under the jurisdiction of the Hevel Modi'in Regional Council.[1] It lies near Lod airport, and its northern junction is located on Route 40.[2][5]

A moshav is an economic cooperative village in which each member family owns a plot primarily intended for agriculture.[6] More generally, modern moshavim may also include residents who are not formal cooperative members.[6] The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics registers Nehalim as locality 449 in the Central District.[1]

The community now known as Nehalim has its roots in 1943, when religious members of the Jerusalem Organization settled near the site of present-day Kibbutz Hagoshrim in the Hula Valley, intending to establish a workers' moshav bearing the name Nehalim.[7] The name was chosen to reflect the headstreams of the Jordan River — nehalim meaning "streams" in Hebrew.[2] A Bar-Ilan University archive description places Nehalim among religious workers' moshavim established in an effort to combine socialism with religious values.[3]

Following disputes with members of nearby secular kibbutzim, the settlers left the northern site in 1948.[7] The moshav was also largely destroyed during the War of Independence, and in August 1948 its settlers relocated to their present site on the land of the former German colony of Wilhelma, near Petah Tikva.[2] They were joined by settlers from Neveh Ya'akov, a community north of Jerusalem that had been evacuated in May 1948 and could not be returned to.[2] Later immigrants from Hungary and Poland also joined the community.[2]

Bar-Ilan University's Religious Zionism Research Archive catalog includes a file titled "Settlements: [Moshav Nehalim]" dated 1949. It also lists a combined file concerning Nehalim, Kfar Etzion and Nir Etzion whose records span 1943–1988, without assigning those dates individually to Nehalim.[8]

One notable figure associated with the moshav is Rabbi Moshe Levinger, who served as its rabbi.[9] In 1968, Levinger organized a Passover Seder in Hebron that became the nucleus of the city's renewed Jewish settlement; he and his supporters remained in the military governor's compound in Hebron for three years before relocating to Kiryat Arba in 1971.[9]

Nehalim had 710 residents in 1969. Its population reached 1,520 in the mid-1990s and 1,920 in 2002.[2] The Encyclopaedia Judaica population table records 1,946 inhabitants as of December 31, 2004.[10] The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics' 2022 locality file records a population of 1,825 for that year.[1]

Nehalim's economy has historically centered on intensive, fully irrigated farming.[2] The moshav is affiliated with the Ha-Po'el ha-Mizrachi moshavim association.[2] A yeshiva opened in the community in 1958, and the 1969 population included members of its staff and student body alongside agricultural families.[2]

Among the agricultural enterprises associated with the moshav, a dairy established by Aaron Markovitz and his wife Tami produces cheeses from sheep's milk.[11] The dairy's courtyard formerly operated as a café known for its Friday brunches, but it later closed because of unspecified administrative matters.[11]

The northern entrance to Nehalim, at the junction on Route 40 near a fuel-station complex, marks the site of a significant episode from the opening of the War of Independence.[5] On the morning of November 30, 1947 — the day after the United Nations voted to adopt the Partition Plan — two Egged buses were ambushed on the old road between Petah Tikva and Lod, south of the former Arab village of Fajja.[12] The terrorist attackers were identified as members of the gang of Saif al-Din Abu Kishk.[12]

The bus from Netanya, driven by Aryeh Heller, suffered five passengers killed and nine wounded.[12] The bus from Hadera, driven by Tuvia Horowitz, had two passengers killed.[12] Israeli accounts characterize the Nehalim Junction site as the place where the first shots of the War of Independence were fired.[12][5]

Ceremonies marking the November 30 attack began in 1987, and an association to honor the victims was established at Netanya Municipality's initiative toward the end of the 1980s.[13] An initial plan for a substantial memorial went unbuilt for two decades; a modest sign was eventually installed at the fuel station near the moshav's northern entrance, where ceremonies and educational programs took place.[13]

During renovations at the entrance fuel station, an older Ministry of Defense sign marking the ambush site disappeared. Yohanan Leib, described as the archivist of Moshav Nehalim, investigated its fate, and Danny Perl of neighboring Moshav Mazor eventually found it buried beneath sand and concrete. Leib and his collaborators restored and rehung the sign, and a new memorial was established at Nehalim Junction.[12] Their two-year research effort located 18 of the 21 passengers who had been aboard the Netanya bus.[12]

Nehalim and the Hevel Modi'in Regional Council approved a dedicated location for a memorial stone, with the moshav assuming responsibility for the site's gardening and cleanliness.[13]

In 2023, the Hevel Modi'in Regional Council adopted the memorial site, paved its plaza, and placed there a replica bus resembling the model attacked in 1947.[13] The reconstruction was assembled from an old bus frame, with a front incorporating parts from a Kommando car and a Ford truck and a rear door made of wood; it was completed in less than a month.[13] The memorial project received support from the Ministry of Defense, the Hevel Modi'in Regional Council, and the Council for Conservation of Heritage Sites.[4]

Sources assign three different years to Nehalim's founding. The Encyclopaedia Judaica's dedicated entry and a Globes account date the original northern settlement to 1943.[2][7] A Bar-Ilan University archive description lists the founding in the Hebrew year 5704 and renders it as 1944.[3] The Encyclopaedia Judaica population table and the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics both record 1948 as the year of establishment.[10][1]

The 1948 date corresponds to the establishment of the present-day moshav near Petah Tikva, while the earlier dates refer to its northern predecessor. The available sources do not fully resolve the difference between 1943 and 1944.