Beit Zera

Beit Zera
Beit Zera
Coordinates:
Council	Emek HaYarden
Region	Galilee
Affiliation	Kibbutz Movement
Founded	September 1927
Founded by	Austrian and German settlers
Website	www.betzera.org.il

Beit Zera (Hebrew: בֵּית זֶרַע‎, lit. House of Seed) is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee, it falls under the jurisdiction of Emeq HayYarden Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 697.

Name

Beit Zera means in Hebrew "house of seed/semen".

History

In 1920 pioneers from Degania Alef founded kibbutz Degania Gimel south of Degania Bet at the site of the future kibbutz Beit Zera. Separately, another group of Blau-Weiss pioneers from Germany and Austria, who had prepared for their task at the Markenhof Farm from southwest Germany near Freiburg, was established in 1921 in Petah Tikva. In 1922 Degania Gimel was disbanded and its residents moved to the Jezreel Valley where they founded kibbutz Ginegar. In 1926 the Markenhof group moved to the Galilee and settled at Umm Juni, the place where Degania Alef once started from at the end of 1909. In 1927 the huts at Umm Juni were destroyed by an earthquake and the group moved in September 1927 to the old Degania Gimel site, where they established a new, permanent kibbutz settlement which they called Kfar Nathan.

In 1947, Beit Zera had a population of 500.

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the villagers continued their agricultural work despite shelling from Syrian and Iraqi troops as well as from the Arab Legion.

External links

• Official website (Hebrew)
• Kibbutz Bet Zera Israeli Labor Movement (Content moved to unknown URL as of January 2016)