Tel Katzir

Tel Katzir lies southeast of Lake Kinneret, also known as the Sea of Galilee, at the southern end of the Golan Heights.[5][1] It stands at the foot of the Golan Heights and near the Yarmuk River, which separates Israel from Jordan.[2] Until 1967, the kibbutz lay close to and beneath Syrian positions across the border and was continually subject to Syrian attacks.[1]

The kibbutz's name, meaning "Mound of Harvest," was adapted from the former Arabic name of the site.[1] The National Library of Israel catalogues a photograph of Tel Katzir created in 1959 by photographer Boris Karmi as one frame of a filmstrip in the Boris Karmi Archive.[6]

Tel Katzir was established in 1949 on a hill that its archive describes as a Syrian army forward position during the War of Independence; the Encyclopaedia Judaica likewise describes the site as an advanced fortified position used in the Syrian attack on Jordan Valley settlements.[4][1] Eli Hurvitz helped found the kibbutz as a member of an IDF Nahal unit and lived there for several years.[3] A Jerusalem Post opinion essay by a former resident describes the founders as Israeli-born youth-movement graduates.[2] A Jewish Review of Books essay identifies Tel Katzir as affiliated with Mapai rather than Achdut Ha-avoda.[7]

The site's status was contested from the outset. Under the 1949 Israel-Syria Armistice, Syrian forces withdrew from areas that Syria characterized as "no-man's land," while Israel regarded them as Israeli territory demilitarized under the armistice. The Jerusalem Post contributor argues that Tel Katzir was established there as a demonstration of Israeli sovereignty.[2]

Until the Six-Day War, Tel Katzir was continually subject to attacks from Syrian positions above the kibbutz.[1] Its archive records that residents cultivated fields under fire and describes the boundary of the kibbutz's cultivated land as the country's border.[4] The former resident later recounted stories from longtime residents about farmers plowing in armored tractors under protection from Syrian fire and noted that some incidents were discussed at the UN Security Council.[2]

On January 12, 1967, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol visited Tel Katzir and the neighboring kibbutz HaOn and reported to the cabinet that residents were "sitting on pins" and felt the situation could not continue. The cabinet resolved that residents should be permitted to work in sovereign territory over which there was no dispute.[8] On April 7, 1967, a Syrian anti-tank cannon fired at a tractor working agricultural land near HaOn, beginning an exchange involving tanks, mortars, and artillery. Syrian shells struck various places within Tel Katzir.[8] Israeli aircraft attacked Syrian gun positions, and the Israeli Air Force shot down six Syrian planes without sustaining any losses of its own.[9]

The capture of the Golan Heights by Israeli forces in June 1967 ended the gravest danger to Tel Katzir.[1] The kibbutz archive summarized the change as the end of life "in the shadow of the Syrian plateau," but records that peace did not immediately follow. During the War of Attrition, Katyusha rockets and artillery shells from Jordan made shelters a second home, and children routinely slept in them overnight.[4] The Jerusalem Post contributor also describes children's houses connected to reinforced-concrete tunnels that provided quick access to bomb shelters.[2] Tel Katzir's homes sustained damage from Syrian shelling during the Six-Day War, and Kibbutz Movement chair Ze'ev Shor later said that the authorities had not compensated the kibbutz for that damage.[10]

According to the Jerusalem Post contributor, the direct security threat largely dissipated after Israel captured the Golan Heights in 1967 and King Hussein expelled Palestinian fedayeen from Jordan during Black September in 1970.[2] In a June 20, 1967 letter, UJA associate general chairman Edward Ginsberg named Tel Katzir among northern border settlements whose residents had spent nineteen years "looking into the mouths of the Syrian guns."[11] The kibbutz archive later described Tel Katzir as returning to life as "a regular kibbutz."[4]

Tel Katzir's population stood at 364 in the mid-1990s and declined to 225 by 2002.[1] A 1991 field report envisioned a possible settlement belt running along the edge of the Golan Heights from just above Tel Katzir toward Katzrin, encompassing traditional kibbutzim and moshavim as well as the city of Katzrin.[5]

A 2022 Jerusalem Post opinion essay portrayed Tel Katzir's community identity as rooted in the egalitarian and Labor Zionist traditions of a border kibbutz, while noting changes in its voting patterns. In Israel's 2021 election, Yesh Atid placed first in Tel Katzir with 28.32% of the vote, followed by Labor at 24.78%, Blue and White at 13.27%, and Likud at 8.85%. The contributor cautioned that the Likud share might disproportionately reflect residents of the kibbutz's private housing development rather than kibbutz members.[2]

The kibbutz archive describes Tel Katzir as based on agriculture, including orchards, livestock, and field crops.[4] After Israeli forces captured the Golan Heights in 1967, kibbutz lands to which Syrian forces had previously barred access were reclaimed and brought into intensive cultivation.[1]

The Encyclopaedia Judaica lists bananas, fruit orchards, dairy cattle, poultry, and ostrich raising among the kibbutz's prominent farming branches.[1] Tel Katzir also operates a cooperative dairy with nearby Moshav Keshet; a 2019 report stated that the joint operation produced approximately 8 million liters of milk annually.[12] The kibbutz developed a tourism sector that included a holiday resort, guest rooms, and organized trips.[1]

In the early 2000s, the Jordan Valley Regional Council favored establishing a new community, Tel Katzir B, on kibbutz land. Tel Katzir opposed the plan because of concern that it would affect occupancy of a planned residential neighborhood beside the kibbutz. The council subsequently identified Kadmat Kinneret as the alternative site.[13]