Ben Shemen

Ben Shemen
בֶּן שֶׁמֶן‬
Ben Shemen
Coordinates: 31°57′14.4″N 34°55′29.64″E / 31.954000°N 34.9249000°E / 31.954000; 34.9249000Coordinates: 31°57′14.4″N 34°55′29.64″E / 31.954000°N 34.9249000°E / 31.954000; 34.9249000
District Central
Council Hevel Modi'in
Affiliation Moshavim Movement
Founded 1905 (original)
1952 (re-establishment)
Population (2017)[1] 862
Bezalel workshop at Ben Shemen, 1911

Ben Shemen (Hebrew: בֶּן שֶׁמֶן‬) is a moshav in central Israel. Located around four kilometres east of Lod, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hevel Modi'in Regional Council. In 2017 it had a population of 862.[1]

Etymology

The village's name is taken from Isaiah 5:1;

Let me sing of my well-beloved, a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill.[2]

and also reflects the JNF's planting of olive trees in this area.[3]

History

The moshav was founded in 1905, and was one of the first villages established on Jewish National Fund land;[3] the first Jewish National Fund forest is also located in Ben Shemen.[3] According to a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, Ben Shemen had a population of 90 Jews.[4] Which had increased in the 1931 census to 353 residents, in 30 houses.[5] In 1923 it was split in two, with a group of trial farms eventually becoming a separate moshav, Kerem Ben Shemen.

The Ben Shemen Youth Village was established adjacent to the moshav in 1927 and is today a large agricultural boarding school.[6][3]

During World War II, Ben Shemen was the site of a British search for weapons. Similar searches were a common British response to Jewish opposition to the White Paper of 1939.[7] In 1947 Ben Shemen had a population of 75.[3] The village experienced extensive damage during the early days of the 1948 Arab–Israeli war and had to be reconstructed.[3] Immigrants from Romania joined the moshavin 1952. Some houses were built by Bezalel Academy of Art and Design founder Boris Schatz.

Notable residents

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "List of localities, in Alphabetical order" (PDF). Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved August 26, 2018.
  2. ↑ Isaiah Chapter 5 Mechon Mamre
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Jewish National Fund (1949). Jewish Villages in Israel. Jerusalem: Hamadpis Liphshitz Press. p. 16.
  4. ↑
  5. ↑ Mills, 1932, p. 19
  6. ↑ Chaya H. Roth (16 September 2008). The fate of Holocaust memories: transmission and family dialogues. Macmillan. pp. 83–. ISBN 978-0-230-60607-4. Retrieved 10 April 2011.
  7. ↑ Anita, Shapira (1992). Land and Power, The Zionist Resort to Force. Chapter 7: Oxford University Press. p. 288.
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