Kibbutz Ginegar: After declaration, before forest
On eve of Rosh Hashana, 84 years ago, new pioneering community established in Lower Galilee, inheriting several mysterious buildings from former settlers. Photographic tour of Kibbutz Ginegar's first days
This is how it all began. Nazareth Mountains overlook the collective farmstead of Ginegar and the Jezreel Valley fields. Mount Gilboa can be seen far away. A photo from the 1920s.
The Ginegar founders were people of the Second and Third Aliyah, who worked in Galilee farming communities and joined together to build Degania Gimel, which later become Kibbutz Beit Zera. Due to the lack of ground the group moved, on the eve of Rosh Hashana in 1922, to the Gingar estate – Ginegar.
In the photo: Some of the founders, near one of the buildings that were in the area before the building of the settlement and which constitute a mystery to this day.
In 1928, an international-style dining room was built in Ginegar, planned by architect Richard Kaufman. It was the most sophisticated dining room in the Settlement Movement communities those days.
The hostile environment necessitates the establishment of a defensive force from among the group members.
This is where the forest named after Lord Balfour of "the declaration" to build a national home in the Land of Israel will be planted. In 1928, the Jewish National Fund decided to plant the Balfour Forest, the fund's first forestation enterprise. Ginegar members assisted in the work.
Near the Balfour Forets, the group members plant grapevines and olives.
A look from the Balfour Forest which grew on the valleys, Givat Hamoreh and Mount Gilboa.
Horses in the Ginegar fields.
Bare hay.
Hay field, Lower Galilee in the background.
First swimming pool, made of asphalt. Mount Tabor in the background.
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