Sde Nehemia

Sde Nehemia
Sde Nehemia
	View of Sde Nehemiya
	Sde Nehemia
	Coordinates: 33°11′12″N 35°37′21″E / 33.18667°N 35.62250°E
Country	Israel
District	Northern
Council	Upper Galilee
Affiliation	Kibbutz Movement
Founded	19 December 1940
Founded by	Austrian, Dutch and Czechoslovak Jews
Population (2022)	1,288

Sde Nehemia (Hebrew: שְׂדֵה נְחֶמְיָה, lit. Nehemia's Field) (Sde Nehemya) is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located in the Upper Galilee, it falls under the jurisdiction of Upper Galilee Regional Council. In 2022 it had a population of 1,288.^[1]

The Banias and Hasbani Rivers converge on the grounds of the kibbutz.

History

Sde Nehemia was founded on 19 December 1940 by settlers from Austria, the Netherlands and Czechoslovakia, on land bought from the Palestinian village of al-Dawwara. It was originally known as Kvutzat Huliot, but later renamed after Nehemia de Lieme, a Dutch banker and Zionist activist who served as head of the Jewish National Fund.^[2]

In the early days of the kibbutz, the settlers lived in tents in the midst of malaria-infested swampland. According to one anecdote, a Dutch settler and physician named Yehuda Abas distributed anti-malarial pills free of charge to the local Palestinian population, but discovered these pills were being cut into four and sold for large sums of money to Arabs from as far away as Syria and Lebanon. Abas's solution was to introduce injections.^[3]

Rafael Reiss from Sde Nehemia was one of seven parachutists sent into Nazi-occupied Europe in 1944. He was captured by the Nazis and executed on 20 November 1944.^[4]

During the Nakba, on May 25th, 1948, the Palestinians from the nearby village Al-'Abisiyya were ethnically cleansed in Operation Yiftach by Zionist forces.^[5] In May, 1948, kibbutz Sde Nehemia then seized, "somewhat shamefacedly", 1,700 dunams of land from Al-'Abisiyya.^[6] The former Palestinian residents of al-Abisiyya were never allowed to return to their village or reclaim their stolen property.^[5]

Sde Nehemia 1944
Sde Nehemia 1944
Sde Nehemia 1945
Sde Nehemia, 1946

Economy

Located in the fertile Hula Valley between the Golan Heights and Lebanon, agriculture is a significant source of income. The kibbutz also owns a plastics factory, Huliot, a leading manufacturer of pipe systems and plastic products. Huliot specializes in flow products for water supply, drainage, sewage and greywater recycling which it sells on the local and global markets. The factory was established in 1947.^[7]

References

^ ^a ^b "Regional Statistics". Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 21 March 2024.
^ KKL-JNF world chairmen Jewish National Fund
^ Dutch Jews As Perceived by Themselves and by Others: Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on the History of the Jews in the Nethderlands, edited by Chaya Brasz and Yosef Kaplan
^ My father, the Nazi-fighting hero that no one's heard of Haaretz
^ ^a ^b "Welcome To al-'Abisiyya - العابسية (אל-עאבסיה)". Palestine Remembered.
^ Morris, Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. p. 363, note #130, p. 402. ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6.
^ "Made in Israel Portal". Archived from the original on 2015-06-10. Retrieved 2015-06-09.

External links

Facebook page for former volunteers

[Israelpopulations-1] "Regional Statistics". Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 21 March 2024.

[2] KKL-JNF world chairmen Jewish National Fund

[3] Dutch Jews As Perceived by Themselves and by Others: Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on the History of the Jews in the Nethderlands, edited by Chaya Brasz and Yosef Kaplan

[4] My father, the Nazi-fighting hero that no one's heard of Haaretz

[:0-5] "Welcome To al-'Abisiyya - العابسية (אל-עאבסיה)". Palestine Remembered.

[6] Morris, Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. p. 363, note #130, p. 402. ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6.

[7] "Made in Israel Portal". Archived from the original on 2015-06-10. Retrieved 2015-06-09.

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