| Beit Alfa | ||
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| Hebrew | בֵּית אַלְפָא | |
| Founded | November 21, 1962 | |
| Founded by | Hashomer Hatzair | |
| Council | Menashe | |
| District | North | |
| Affiliation | Kibbutz Movement | |
| Coordinates | ||
| Population | 1,100 | |
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Beit Alfa
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Beit Alfa (Hebrew: בֵּית אַלְפָא) is a kibbutz in the Northern District of Israel, near the Gilboa ridge.
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The kibbutz was founded in 1922 by Hashomer Hatzair volunteers. The first members came from Poland. [1] In 1940 some of the members, affiliated with Hashomer Hatzair, moved to Ramat Yohanan kibbutz, in exchange for supporters of Mapai from Ramat Yohanan. According to the Jewish National Fund, this move was prompted by an ideological split.[1]
On the 1st of April 1948 the kibbutz was attacked by Arab mortar fire. The Arabs withdrew as a platoon from the 1st parachute battalion of the British 6th Airborne Division approached.[2]
The Kibbutz dairy was the first Israeli dairy to use robotic milking technology.
The Beit Alfa Synagogue National Park, located at the nearby kibbutz Heftziba, contains an ancient Byzantine-era synagogue, with a mosaic floor depicting the lunar Hebrew months as they correspond to the signs of the zodiac.[3][4]
One of Beit Alfa's main industries is riot control equipment that has been the subject of some controversy. The equipment has been sold to regimes that some accuse of abusing human rights. During the 1980s, Beit Alfa sold water cannon to the apartheid regime in South Africa.[5][6] Officials from Beit Alfa have defended the sale of their equipment to human-rights abusing regimes, on the grounds that compared with live ammunition, water cannons save lives of demonstrators who otherwise might be shot dead with live ammunition.[7]
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