Sdei Trumot

Sdei Trumot sits in the Beit Shean Valley at the foot of Mount Gilboa. Highway 90, also called the Jordan Valley Road, crosses the moshav from north to south and connects it to the broader Jordan Valley road network.[1] It is one of four moshavim in the Bikura bloc, together with Revaya, Rehov, and Tel Teomim, all located south of Beit She'an.[1]

The Banim neighborhood is an expansion west of Highway 90 near the settlement center. A government valuation document describes modern construction and partially completed infrastructure there and states that the neighborhood was intended for continuing family members of existing residents rather than general public marketing.[1]

Sdei Trumot was established in 1951.[1][2] Its name derives from 2 Samuel 1:21, part of David's lament after the deaths of Saul and Jonathan: "Mountains of Gilboa, may you have neither dew nor rain ... for there the shield of the mighty was defiled, the shield of Saul."[2] The name connects the modern settlement to the ancient landscape below the Gilboa ridge.

A user-created Sefaria sheet likewise links the name Sde Trumot to the Hebrew wording of David's lament and interprets it as referring to the lack of agricultural bounty around Gilboa.[4] This is an interpretive reading rather than an independent official etymology.

On June 19, 2003, a suicide bomber detonated explosives in a grocery store in Sdei Trumot, killing resident Avner Mordechai. Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.[3] One incident profile identifies the bomber as Ahmad Ali Miflah Abbahara, a 19-year-old from al-Yamun near Jenin who had been recruited by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad infrastructure in Jenin.[5] Mordechai left a wife, six children, grandchildren, and siblings.[6]

The bomber reportedly arrived during the morning wearing jeans and a black T-shirt and carrying a shoulder bag. After the store owner asked him to come inside, he entered and detonated the explosives.[6]

Residents subsequently criticized the area's security arrangements. Sdei Trumot resident Mordechai Mordechai said that there was effectively no security beyond a jeep that sometimes patrolled the settlements and that the area could be entered freely. Residents also criticized an unfinished fence, while Gilboa Regional Council head Yael Shaaltieli said the security cabinet had decided not to continue the fence in that area.[7]

Iyad Abu al-Rub, identified as the head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad's armed wing, Saraya al-Quds, in Jenin, was arrested by the Israeli military in 2005. An Israeli military court later convicted him for the Sde Trumot attack and subsequent suicide bombings in Tel Aviv and Hadera.[8]

In 2003, moshav committee chairman Uri Mordechai described Sdei Trumot as a religious-traditional settlement of approximately 100 families.[9] A later government document similarly records its religious character and lists a synagogue, kindergarten, secretariat, club, and sports field among its public facilities.[1] The family estimate is historical rather than a current population count.

Agriculture has long anchored the moshav's economy, alongside liberal professions.[1] The Kaduri family operated a major flower-growing enterprise, owning approximately 200 dunams and cultivating flowers in greenhouses. A neighbor described Ezra Kaduri as a large-scale flower-export contractor, and all four of his sons worked in the family business.[9] Ezra and Carmela Kaduri, both 65, died by suicide amid severe financial distress and debts of approximately one million shekels. Haim Haddad of the Israeli Flower Growers Association said the sector had faced a two-year crisis caused by the euro-shekel exchange-rate gap and competition from African flower imports into Europe.[9]

In 2016, Miriam and Eliyahu Shechter, an American Lubavitch couple, were managing a farm in the moshav with goats, a horse, sheep, and chickens. They made cheese and yogurt from excess goat milk, offered goats for NIS 800 to NIS 1,800 each, and hoped to develop a tourist site where visitors could participate in farm life.[10]

By 2017, social entrepreneur Harry Rozenberg had purchased land in Sdei Trumot, where four participants were developing the StayTru Eco Farm Project as a prototype for sustainable communal living.[11] The participants—conceptual artist Yasmin Hasidim, Canadian transplant Kevin Schlosser, and Black Hebrew Israelite community members Ha'tsalem Ben Israel and Rafiyah-Joy Covington—lived beside the farm in a house called Solomon's Sanctuary.[11] Plans included an eco-education center for organic food production, alternative energy, and natural healing. The project was reported to have secured college accreditation and planned online courses with the State University of New York, subject to funding and further development.[11]

A memorial in central Sdei Trumot commemorates residents who fell in Israel's wars.[2] The brick structure forms the Hebrew letters shin (ש) and tav (ת), the initials of Sdei Trumot and the final two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Its description presents the latter association as a symbol of the fallen's final journey.[2]

The upper letter bears a sheaf-and-sword emblem and the names of the fallen, while the lower letter carries an inscription honoring soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces. The memorial stands east of Highway 90 in the center of the moshav.[2]

Two incident profiles from the same research organization list different dates for the 2003 attack: June 19 and July 19.[5][6] The Jewish Virtual Library records June 19, and contemporaneous ynet coverage published that day describes the attack as having occurred that morning.[3][7] Sources also give Avner Mordechai's age as either 58 or 63, so this article omits a precise age.[3][6]

Sources render the locality variously as "Sdei Trumot" and "Sde Trumot." A contemporaneous Hebrew report uses שדה תרומות for the attack site while separately identifying a resident of שדי תרומות.[7] This article follows the spelling used by the government and memorial sources except when describing another source's wording.

The claim that Kurdish Jews founded the moshav appears in one food-focused article and is not corroborated elsewhere in the available material.[12] The StayTru participants' reported belief that the area is connected to the Garden of Eden is presented as the group's spiritual interpretation, not as an established historical or archaeological conclusion.[11]