Neve Ur

Neve Ur is listed as a kibbutz in the Northern Beth-Shean Valley. The settlement table dates its founding to 1949, gives its movement affiliation as KM—Ha-Kibbutz ha-Me'uhad—and places it in the Beth-Shean Valley regional council. It recorded a population of 416 on December 31, 2004.[1]

Neve Ur was established in 1949 in the Northern Beit She'an Valley.[1] Among its founders was Shoshana Arbeli-Almozlino, born in Iraq in 1926, who immigrated to Israel in 1947 and trained at Kibbutz Sde Nahum before helping to establish the new settlement.[2] She had previously been active in the HeHalutz movement in Iraq and was arrested there because of that activity.[2]

Archival material indexed by the National Library of Israel includes a photograph of houses credited to Boris Karmi and a separate image captioned as a barn at Neve Ur.[3] French prehistorian Jean Perrot conducted excavations at Neve Ur in 1966, though the cited biographical source does not identify the finds or results from that excavation.[4]

A 1971 UJA study-conference document described Neve Ur as "the youngest settlement on the front line" in the Beit She'an Valley, with a population at that time of 150 people, including 45 children.[5] The same document reported periodic Jordanian fire directed at workers and security forces in the area after the Six-Day War.[5]

It recorded four people wounded nearby by artillery and tank fire in August 1968, two border policemen wounded near the kibbutz in May 1970, another wounded that August, and frequent Katyusha rocket attacks during the summer and early autumn.[5] The document also reported that Brachia Ovadia—a 32-year-old Jerusalem native, mother of three, wife of the settlement's treasurer, and one of its founders—was killed by Arab shelling and that three other kibbutz members were wounded.[5]

According to the document, children at Neve Ur slept in shelters every night from the Six-Day War until a subsequent cease-fire.[5] A psychiatrist consulted in connection with the conference judged this routine healthier than rushing children to shelter while shells were already exploding.[5] The report also stated that the kibbutz's cigarette budget had risen 80 percent since 1967, calling this "a small reflection of the tension that is a fact of life there."[5]

The report said Neve Ur farmed 1,100 dunams, approximately 275 acres, of cotton as its main crop and 230 dunams of citrus, in addition to maintaining fish ponds and livestock.[5] It attributed reduced working hours and low productivity to security demands and a shortage of settlers, saying that the kibbutz relied heavily on funds from the Jewish Agency settlement department.[5] Rather than wait for a patrol's all-clear before entering the fields, workers reportedly went out alongside the patrol to avoid losing working hours.[5] The document argued that a larger population would ease both economic and security pressures: "With more people, the economic condition of the kibbutz would improve, and the security situation, too, would be less strained."[5]

Neve Ur's recorded population was 416 on December 31, 2004, compared with the 150 residents reported in the 1971 conference document.[1][5] The 2004 settlement listing classified the kibbutz as affiliated with Ha-Kibbutz ha-Me'uhad and represented in the Beth-Shean Valley regional council.[1]

By 2006, Neve Ur held a majority stake in Ortal Pressure Die Casting, whose factory at the kibbutz produced zinc- and magnesium-alloy products by pressure casting for the automotive, electrical, and electronics industries.[6] The factory employed approximately 100 kibbutz members.[6] Agreements made around Ortal's 1993 flotation had provided Neve Ur with more than NIS 10 million annually in payments for labor, rent, and services.[7]

Neve Ur was described in 2006 as a privatized kibbutz, although Ortal transferred a collective wage payment to the kibbutz on behalf of members working at the factory, primarily for tax reasons. The kibbutz then distributed individual wages to those members.[6]

In 2004, Neve Ur held 73.5 percent of Ortal and opposed a proposed transfer of control to WorldGroup, controlled by Zvika Barinboim.[8] The proposed deal called for a NIS 10 million investment for 51 percent of Ortal, an option for a further 20 percent for NIS 5 million, and approximately NIS 20 million in long-term loans.[8] The kibbutz cited the terms of the deal and the conduct of WorldGroup's representatives as grounds for opposition, and the planned transaction did not proceed.[8] At the time, Neve Ur and Ortal together owed approximately NIS 120 million to Bank Hapoalim, and the kibbutz's economic management feared that losing control of Ortal would harm members' livelihoods and kibbutz income.[7]

Ortal returned to profit in 2003 after two difficult years and increased its net profit in 2004.[7][9] In 2006, investment company Inspire—controlled by Avi Wertheim and Nathan Hetz—signed an agreement to acquire 50.1 percent of Ortal from Neve Ur for NIS 23.8 million.[6] Under the agreement, the kibbutz retained a 23 percent stake, and Inspire received a three-year option to purchase a further 23 percent for NIS 11.9 million.[6]

In 2023, police made arrests in connection with alleged protection-racketeering activity involving a solar farm at the kibbutz.[10] Arson caused an estimated NIS 1.5 million in damage to equipment following a smaller arson incident two months earlier. The project manager and his family were reportedly threatened and told to pay one million shekels to a contractor who had lost the facility's construction tender.[10]

The collapse of the 2004 WorldGroup transaction gave rise to litigation. WorldGroup brought suit over the thwarted sale, and in 2006 Neve Ur and its directors moved to have the case dismissed in Haifa Magistrate's Court.[11] The kibbutz also filed a third-party claim against former Ortal chair Uri Ben-Nun, alleging that he had misrepresented the positions of the kibbutz and Bank Hapoalim during negotiations. These were allegations advanced in the dispute, not established findings.[11] The arrests connected with the solar farm in 2023 likewise concerned allegations that had not been adjudicated at the time of reporting.[10]