Kfar Haruv


Kfar Haruv is an Israeli settlement organized as a kibbutz located in the southern Golan Heights. A member of the Kibbutz Movement, it falls under the jurisdiction of Golan Regional Council. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this. In it had a population of.

Geography

The kibbutz is located on the edge of the cliffs above sea level and east of the sea.

History

A village called Kfar Yahrib is mentioned in the 3rd century Mosaic of Rehob. Later an Arab village with the similar name Kafr Harib existed at the south edge of the current settlement's built-up area. Kafr Harib appeared in Ottoman tax registers in 1596 as a village in the Nahiya of Jawlan Garbi in the Qada of Hawran. It had a population of 5 Muslim households and 7 bachelors and paid taxes on wheat, barley and goats or beehives. In 1888, Gottlieb Schumacher described it as a village of 70 stone and mud huts with about 200 "affable and hospitable" inhabitants, who ran an excellent bee industry in addition to cultivation. Later the village lay just outside the borders of Mandatory Palestine, though some of its lands lay inside Palestine. Kafr Harib village had about 1900 inhabitants when it was depopulated during the Six Day War in 1967.
The Israeli settlement was founded in 1973, and took its name from Kafr Harib. The new Israeli founders settled temporarily in Afik camp, and moved to the present-day location in 1974. The sixteenth Israeli settlement established in the Golan Heights, its members are native Israelis and immigrants from the United States. As of 2011 the population stood at 400 residents, of whom 90 live in the new neighborhood built in 2004.

Economy

The main employer of the settlement is the A.R.I. factory that it owns, which manufactures hydraulic equipment. The settlement continues to grow plants for agriculture, such as almonds, avocado, nectars, and peaches. It also has a cow stable for milk. There is also a laundromat and curtain-maker. The settlement is a partner in the tourist site Hamat Gader, and it operates Mitzpe LeShalom, a place for recreation on the edge of the On Cliffs.