Tirat Zvi
Tirat Zvi is a religious kibbutz in the Beit She'an Valley, ten kilometers south of the city of Beit She'an, Israel, just west of the Jordan River and the Israel-Jordan border. It falls under the jurisdiction of Valley of Springs Regional Council. In it had a population of.
Etymology
Tirat Zvi means Zvi's Fort. It was named after Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, one of the fathers of the Zionist Movement and a leader of Hovevei Zion, while the tira or "fort" refers to a two-story mud-brick structure purchased from the Arab landowner, Musa al-Alami.History
The kibbutz was founded on 30 June 1937, during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, as part of the Tower and Stockade settlement enterprise. The founders were Jews from Germany, Poland and Romania and came from three groups: Kvutzat near Petah Tikva, Kvutzat Shahal near Rehovot, and Kfar Yavetz. The Rodges group was named after the German village where the Religious Zionist hakhshara centre was located through which many of the founders of Tirat Zvi had passed. Kvutzat Shahal was named after the founder of the Mizrachi movement, Shmuel Chaim Landau, known by his Hebrew acronym "ShaChaL", or "lion".The kibbutz was attacked on 28 February 1938, still during the Arab revolt, by a group of armed Arabs. The attack was repelled with many casualties on both sides. On 20 February 1948, before the neighboring Arab nations officially joined the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, a battalion of the Arab Liberation Army led by Muhammed Safa attacked Tirat Zvi. The ALA unit was repelled after 60 of the attackers were killed. One kibbutz member, Naftali Friedlander, was also killed in the fighting.
Despite the attacks on the kibbutz, its population grew from 106 in 1937 to 328 by 1948. Part of the lands surrounding the kibbutz, totaling 2,150 dunams, were purchased by the Jewish National Fund from German Templar families in 1939.
The settlement of Tirat Zvi was established on the land of the now-depopulated villages of al-Khunayzir and al-Zarra'a.