Neve Ilan

Neve Ilan sits in the Judaean Hills on the slopes leading up to Jerusalem, nestled within old forests dating to the British Mandate period.[6] An account of the Jerusalem Corridor places it after Kiryat Anavim and Ma'ale HaHamisha in a geographic sequence of settlements along the uplands, describing Neve Ilan as "nestling in the old forests from Mandate times."[6] The media campus uses the postal address Kiryat HaTikshoret, Neve Ilan, within Moshav Neve Ilan.[7]

The name Neve Ilan is shared by an unrelated neighborhood in the city of Yavne, located in western Yavne, where construction began in 1980 and which housed roughly 7,800 residents as of 2011.[8] All references in this article concern the moshav near Jerusalem.

Founding and Early Years

Neve Ilan was established in October 1946 as a kibbutz outpost on a hilltop along the road to Jerusalem.[3] The Jewish National Fund purchased the land at David Ben-Gurion's urging to create what a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum account calls a "Kibbutz Army Post," intended both to defend the strategically important road and to engage in agriculture.[2] The founding group, numbering fourteen girls and seventeen boys according to founding member Eliezer Lev-Tzion, included survivors of the war years and veterans of the French Maquis resistance against the Nazi occupation.[3] It joined Kiryat Anavim and Ma'ale HaHamisha as a third kibbutz on the Jerusalem slopes.[9]

Life in the early outpost was difficult. Water was brought by truck once a week, the settlement had no electricity, and its residents gradually found that making a living from agriculture was difficult.[2] Before reaching Neve Ilan, Lev-Tzion had passed through kibbutzim Sde Eliyahu and Degania, where he and other young French immigrants received agricultural, social-science, and weapons training.[3]

The War of Independence and Aftermath

At the end of November 1947, the road to Jerusalem was cut off, and the Jewish Agency organized food caravans for the besieged city.[2] Neve Ilan was exposed on its hilltop: Eliezer Schwartz, a founding member and French Resistance veteran, was ambushed and shot dead near the outpost on January 15, 1948, at age nineteen—the settlement's first fatality.[10]

During the War of Independence, the outpost came under heavy fire from Arab forces and was severely damaged.[10] After the war, the kibbutz attempted to sustain itself through poultry and dairy farming and mushroom cultivation, but tensions among members worsened as the community grew. Members began departing in the early 1950s, and the original kibbutz was abandoned in 1956.[10] Lev-Tzion said that he and the family he rebuilt remained in Neve Ilan from its founding in 1946 until 1956.[3]

Re-establishment as a Moshav

The Times of Israel describes Neve Ilan as having been re-established in the early 1970s by North American members of the Zionist youth movement Young Judea, who moved into newly constructed buildings beside the ruins of the former outpost.[10] Under that account, the reconstituted community took the form of a moshav, or cooperative farming settlement, and its livelihood included agriculture and a modern hotel.[10]

A 1982 Hadassah promotional flyer described Neve Ilan as "an ideal moshav shitufi in the beautiful Judaean Hills." It advertised a month-long family program that invited Jewish families considering aliyah to stay in the same type of two-bedroom houses used by permanent residents, tour Israel, meet aliyah specialists, and experience daily life in the cooperative community.[1]

Neve Ilan's most prominent modern economic complex is its media campus near Abu Ghosh on the outskirts of Jerusalem. A 2013 report stated that Israeli law required commercial television news companies to broadcast from the Jerusalem area.[4] The site's qualification under that requirement had been disputed in 1998: Jerusalem Capital Studios argued that the relevant tender required facilities within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries, while the tender committee used the Interior Ministry's Jerusalem District definition, which included Neve Ilan. The company filed suit, but the cited report did not state the outcome.[11]

Globus Group built the original studio complex in the late 1990s, investing approximately $6 million after winning a tender to provide Channel 2 News with studio and editing facilities.[12] The company subsequently invested a further $2 million in infrastructure connecting the campus to broadcast stations in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Palestinian Authority territory. It also entered advanced negotiations with twelve foreign communications organizations about operating from the site, although the report did not say that those negotiations produced agreements.[12] During the 2002 Jenin campaign, a monitoring unit at the Neve Ilan studio supported the round-the-clock media center established in Jerusalem, alongside an instant-response team.[13]

By 2013, Channel 10 News had arranged to relocate to the Neve Ilan studios under a NIS 20 million financing agreement with the campus owner, repayable through a ten-year contract.[4] The move was estimated to add roughly NIS 6 million to Channel 10 News's budget beyond prior plans.[4] The campus's resilience was illustrated during a severe December 2013 storm: nearly 120 Channel 2 staff members, including presenter Dani Kushmaro, were stranded when blocked roads prevented them from reaching hotels in Neve Ilan and Ma'ale HaHamisha. Kushmaro slept on the newsroom floor after the Neve Ilan Hotel lost power, while the news operation continued broadcasting.[14]

As of 2014, the campus covered approximately 60 dunams and contained 30,000 square meters of built office and studio space, generating annual revenue of around NIS 13 million.[15] That year, Globus sold the property to Reality Real Estate Fund and institutional investors for NIS 180 million. The new owners announced plans to use additional building rights and promote further development, including a proposed national entertainment and leisure center.[15] In 2018, Isras acquired the campus from Reality Fund for NIS 298 million including VAT. The property was then described as seven buildings totaling 22,000 square meters on approximately 59,000 square meters of land. Isras also purchased 21,000 square meters of adjacent land with building potential mainly for hotel and leisure facilities.[16]

The modern moshav adjoins Neve Ilan Forest, which offers a circular walking route with views of surrounding mountains and seasonal wildflowers.[10] Ruins of the original 1946 outpost remain standing within the landscape, and visitors can inspect the old structures, though a planned heritage site for the outpost was never completed.[10]

Within the forest, an ancient fortress stands on a hill at 530 meters above sea level, positioned to overlook the route through the Ayalon Valley toward Jerusalem.[10] The structure was built during the reign of Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus, later expanded with rooms and a courtyard under Herod toward the end of the first century BCE, and abandoned in 70 CE during the Jewish revolt against Rome.[10] Archaeological remains from the Iron Age have also been found in the area, along with 22 gravesites whose occupants were interred facing Mecca.[10]

The forest also contains Belgium Park, which features picnic areas and rock memorials dedicated to the 29,000 Belgian Jews murdered in the Holocaust.[10] A Simone Louki Overlook and a Benny Kaplan Overlook—the latter incorporating five sculptures and a path into Holland Forest—are also present. Holland Forest was renewed with support from the Dutch Friends of the Jewish National Fund following a destructive fire.[10]

On the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II in 1995, the Jewish National Fund and a federation of Polish-origin communities established a memorial to Polish Jewry at Har HaRuach in the forest.[5] The site includes an open-air theater, a cairn commemorating Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust, and a memorial to educator Janusz Korczak.[5]