Kfar Ruppin Is Founded

November 25, 1938

The Kibbutz Kfar (Village) Ruppin is founded. It is established in the framework of the “Tower and Stockade” movement in Zionism, which takes place primarily between 1936 and 1939, just before the British restrict Jewish immigration and land purchases under the 1939 White Paper.

Kfar Ruppin and other “Tower and Stockade” settlements are built to take advantage of an Ottoman law that is still in effect during the British Mandate. The law says that any illegal building may not be demolished if the roof has been completed.

To ensure that any construction is completed before the arrival of British military forces or Arab gangs, the settlements are planned in secrecy with virtually all of the construction completed in advance. A Zionist team arrives in the morning with pre-fabricated materials and completes the work by sundown. More than three dozen such settlements are established during the period of prolonged unrest in the late 1930s.

The “Tower and Stockade” settlements solve security needs and create facts on the ground regarding Jewish settlement in the event of Palestine being partitioned. Zionists want to have key positions established that would be of defensive and political value to a nascent Jewish state. Kfar Ruppin and the other fortified communities help extend the map of Jewish settlement and expand the potential borders of a Jewish state.

The original “Tower and Stockade” at Kfar Ruppin is replaced by a cultural hall as the kibbutz grows and attracts more residents. The kibbutz is in the Beit Shean Valley in the Syro-African Rift, the main migration route for birds. In 1997, Kibbutz Kfar Ruppin establishes an international bird-watching center.

By 2000, the kibbutz has a population of 450.

The kibbutz is named for Arthur Ruppin, who, along with Jacob Thon, opened the Palestine Office of the World Zionist Organization in 1907. Engaged in land purchase and Jewish settlement, Ruppin played a significant role in bringing Yemenite Jews to Palestine in 1911, in building Tel Aviv and in expanding Haifa.

The website Jewishvilkaviskis.org presents a pictorial history of the founding of the kibbutz.