Mefalsim

File:Mefalsim cowshed and silo1955.jpg

Mefalsim was established in 1949 by members of the Habonim Dror youth movement, most of them immigrants from Argentina and Uruguay.[https://web.archive.org/web/20160126173041/http://eng.negev-net.org.il/HTMLs/article.aspx?C2004=12742 Mefalsim, Shaar Hanegev] Negev Information Centre It was named "Mefalsim" to honor the immigrants from Latin America who paved (lefales) the way for others to make aliyah.

In 1966 the Argentine ambassador to Israel invited the kibbutz choir to perform Argentine folk music at the opening of the Argentine House in Jerusalem. This led to the establishment of Conjunto Mefalsim, a band that performed Argentine and Latin American music, appearing on radio and television. The band also recorded several albums.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C99eCwAAQBAJ&dq=mefalsim&pg=PA229 |author1=Richard Ivan Jobs|author2=David M. Pomfret|title=Transnational Histories of Youth in the Twentieth Century {{!}} Belonging to many homes|page=229}}

In 2005 the kibbutz absorbed some of the evicted families after the Israeli disengagement from Gaza.{{cite web|url=https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/overview-of-the-approximately-30-new-homes-at-kibbutz-news-photo/965720314 |title=Relocation housing for Gush Katif evacuees|website= Getty Images}} Since 2001 the kibbutz has been hit by dozens of rockets launched from the Gaza Strip, with a few buildings destroyed, including the kindergarten in 2012.{{cite news |last=Ser |first=Sam |date=17 August 2005 |title=Evacuees Settle in at Kibbutz Mefalsim |url=https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-112585699.html |newspaper=The Jerusalem Post |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161018213939/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-112585699.html |archive-date=18 October 2016 |access-date=18 April 2019}} In 2018 the village was the first location set ablaze by a fire balloon.{{cite news |last1=Tzuri |first1=Matan |last2=Levi |first2=Elior |date=7 May 2018 |script-title=he:נזקים כבדים בעוטף עזה בגלל בלוני תבערה |trans-title=Heavy Damage in Otef Aza due to Incendiary Balloons |language=he |url=https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-5253845,00.html |newspaper=Yedioth Ahronoth |access-date=18 April 2019}}

In October 2023 Mefalsim was attacked by Hamas as part of the attack that started the Gaza war. The kibbutz's security team battled the attackers for hours, holding them off until IDF reinforcements arrived and cleared away additional Hamas gunmen approaching the kibbutz. Several members of the kibbutz were injured but there were no fatalities inside the community,{{cite news|url=https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/18/middleeast/hamas-documents-invs/index.html |title=How volunteer guards foiled a carefully planned Hamas attack on one kibbutz|website=CNN}} although at least three civilians were killed outside the kibbutz gates. There are memorials to the married couple and their friend{{who |date= May 2025}} who were murdered when a grenade was thrown into their shelter.{{cn |date= May 2025}}

File:Another view of the gardens at Kibbutz Mefalsim.JPG

In 2017 Kibbutz Mefalsim had 430 acres of citrus and almond groves. Joining other farmers in the region, fruit farmers from Mefalsim called on Israeli defense minister Avigdor Lieberman to grant entry permits to hundreds of Gazans to work in their orchards.{{cite news|url=https://www.ft.com/content/193320fc-9eeb-11e7-9a86-4d5a475ba4c5 |title=Israel fruit farmers eye Gaza to fix labour shortage|work=Financial Times}} Mefalsim-Kfar Aza is a farming cooperative that grows roots vegetables such as potatoes and carrots over an area of 14,000 dunams (roughly 3,500 acres).{{cite news|url=https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-703143 |title=50,000 tons of Israeli produce may be destroyed due to Ukraine War|work=Jerusalem Post}}

In 2022 the Shibolet Group acquired an area of 22 dunams of kibbutz land for the establishment of a logistics center for industrial companies.{{cite web|url=https://www.firon.co.il/news/real-estate-7/ |title=The Shibolet Group is to set up a logistics center at Kibbutz Mefalsim|website=www.firon.co.il}}

File:PikiWiki Israel 14860 The black arrow.jpg]]

An IDF memorial site, the Black Arrow Memorial is located on the outskirts of kibbutz Mefalsim.{{cite web|url=http://www.kkl-jnf.org/tourism-and-recreation/tours/black-arrow-memorial.aspx|access-date=22 July 2017|title=Black Arrow Memorial|website=Jewish National Fund}}

A stone weight of one nezef (c. 10 grams) from the 7th century BCE ( Iron Age II) bearing a Hebrew inscription and found at Mefalsim, is now part of the national Israel Museum collections.{{cite journal |last= Eisenberg-Degen |first= Davida |title=Tel ʽIrit: Final Report |date= 25 February 2018 |journal=Hadashot Arkheologiyot – Excavations and Surveys in Israel |volume= 130 |year= 2018 |url=https://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/report_detail_eng.aspx?id=25388&mag_id=126 |access-date= 28 May 2025}}

A cluster of mounds near Mefalsim, which includes Tel ʽIrit/Tell Wad ez-Zeit and Khirbet Deir Dusawi, is known as Tulul el-Humr/Humra ('red[dish] tells'). Tel ʽIrit is described by L.Y. Rahmani (1981) as containing "mainly Iron Age remains",

{{cite journal |last= Rahmani |first= L.Y. |author-link= Levi Rahmani |title= Finds from a Sixth to Seventh Centuries Site near Gaza: I. The Toys |journal=Israel Exploration Journal |volume= 31 |number= 1/2 |year= 1981 |pages= 72–80 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/27925785 |access-date= 28 May 2025}} while D. Eisenberg-Degen (2018) mentions it among a group of mounds of Late Byzantine pottery debris.{{cite journal |last= Eisenberg-Degen |first= Davida |title=Tel ʽIrit: Final Report |journal=Hadashot Arkheologiyot – Excavations and Surveys in Israel |volume= 130 |year= 2018 |url=https://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/report_detail_eng.aspx?id=25388&mag_id=126 |access-date= 28 May 2025}}

A broken marble slab bearing a fragmentary Greek inscription, probably funerary in purpose, was found at Tel Mefalsim/Tell er-Rusum,{{cite book |editor= Walter Ameling |display-editors= et al. |chapter= XXVIII Tel Mefalsim: 2525. Fragment of a Greek funerary inscription? |title=Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae |year= 2014 |publisher= De Gruyter |place= Berlin, Boston |volume= 3 South Coast: 2161-2648 |pages= 517-520 |doi= 10.1515/9783110337679.517 |chapter-url= https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110337679.517/html?lang=de |access-date= 28 May 2025}} an archaeological site near Tel ‘Irit and situated between Mefalsim and Kfar Aza.

In 2017 a salvage excavation was conducted at Tel ʽIrit, southwest of Kibbutz Mefalsim, by the Israel Antiquities Authority. With a height of 15 m, it is the highest of six mounds of pottery workshop debris dated to the late Byzantine period (end of the sixth–beginning of seventh century CE), being part of an extensive pottery production centre of estimately twenty simultaneously operated kilns.

Among the sixth- to seventh-century findings at Tel Mefalsim and Kh. Deir Dusawi, Rahmani identifies several fragmentary ceramic toys: doll heads which could be mounted on rag dolls, and animal figurines (mainly horses and a possible camel) with loops instead of legs for axles and wheels, and a perforated extension in the front where a string could be attached for pulling the toy along.

{{reflist}}

• {{Official|http://www.mefalsim.co.il/ }} {{in lang|he}}
• [https://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/story/life/2023/04/20/a-latinas-experience-living-near-the-israel-gaza-border/70079839007/ Life in a war zone: A Latina’s experience living near the Israel-Gaza border]

{{Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council}}

Category:Argentine-Jewish culture in Israel

Category:Uruguayan diaspora in Israel

Category:Kibbutzim

Category:Kibbutz Movement

Category:Populated places established in 1949

Category:Gaza envelope

Category:Populated places in Southern District (Israel)

Category:South American-Jewish culture in Israel

Category:1949 establishments in Israel