Reshafim

Reshafim
Reshafim
Coordinates: 32°28′53″N 35°28′38″E / 32.48139°N 35.47722°ECoordinates: 32°28′53″N 35°28′38″E / 32.48139°N 35.47722°E
Region Beit She'an Valley
Affiliation Kibbutz Movement
Founded 1948
Founded by Hashomer Hatzair members
Website www.reshafim.org.il

Reshafim (Hebrew: רְשָׁפִים, lit. Sparks) is a kibbutz in northeastern Israel. Located two kilometres to the south of the town of Beit She'an in the Beit She'an Valley, it falls under the jurisdiction of Valley of Springs Regional Council. The kibbutz has about 270 members, 50 non-member residents, and 100 children.

History

The community was established by Hashomer Hatzair members movement in 1947 at Kiryat Haim. In 1948 land was allocated from the state owned Al-Ashrafiyya area south of Beit She'an whose Arab inhabitants fled to Jordan, as units of the Golani brigade approached during the night of the 10th to the 11th May during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.[1] For the first few months at the site, the members of Kibbutz Reshafim lived temporarily in a camp jointly with the members of Kibbutz Shluhot which belonged to the Orthodox Religious Kibbutz Movement. The camp was later broken up when both kibbutzim were established adjacent to each other.

The founder members were mostly Holocaust survivors from Romania and Poland. They were joined by a small group of Israeli-born Sabras. In the 1950s a group of Argentine Jews and another group consisting mostly of Sephardic Jews joined the kibbutz. In the 1960s members were recruited from the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement and the Nahal from among the descendants of kibbutz members. With the decline of Western socialism and growing economic difficulties in the 1980s and 1990s population numbers stagnated.

Economy

At its inception Reshafim was a classical kibbutz where all the means of production belonged to the commune and members received equal shares of services, products, and money as remuneration. During the 1990s a process of privatization began, culminating in members receiving salaries and having to pay for services.

In 2007 the commune still owns a dairy, orchards, a chickenfarm, and a fresh-water fishery, is partner in an agricultural co-operative and part-owner of the Terraflex Industries plastics factory.

Terraflex Industries

Terraflex Industries produces a wide range of industrial and technical hoses and tubing as well as customized PVC compounds. All Terraflex hoses (including marine hoses, dairy hoses and technical tubing) are manufactured from vinyl PVC compounds that are lead free and made of FDA food-approved ingredients. The variety of both soft and rigid PVC profile compounds allow for a large amount of applications such as pvc cables, pvc seals, food grade pvc compound bottles, injection molding, bath mats, hoses, cable tunnels, medical devices and more.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Cambridge University Press, 2004 p.227

External links