Tel Hai

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Coordinates: 33°14′06″N, 35°34′42″E

Tel Hai (Hebrew: תל חי, Hill of Life) is a national monument in Upper Galilee, Israel commemorating the deaths of eight Jews, six men and two women, among them the one-armed, Russian-Jewish military hero Joseph Trumpeldor, in an attack by local King Faisal's forces in 1920.

Trumpeldor is reported to have said, "It is good to die for one's country."

Tel Hai was intermittently inhabited since 1905 and permanently settled as a border outpost in 1918 following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. The area was subsequently subject to intermittent border adjustments among the British and the French.

In 1919, the British relinquished the northern section of the upper Galilee containing Tel Hai, Metula, Hamrah, and Kfar Giladi to the French jurisdiction. A year later, the Arabs of Palestine rebelled for the first time against the British and Jews.

In 1921, Tel Hai was resettled and in 1926 was absorbed into the kibbutz Kfar Giladi. The memorial is best known for an emblematic statue of a defiant lion representing Trumpeldor and his comrades. The city of Kiryat Shemona, literally Town of the Eight was named after them.

[edit] See also

• Riots in Palestine of 1920
• Sykes-Picot Agreement