Kfar Giladi - History

History

Kibbutz Giladi was founded in 1916 by members of Hashomer on land owned by the Jewish Colonization Association. It was named after Israel Giladi, one of the founders of the Hashomer movement. The area was subject to intermittent border adjustments between the British and the French, and in 1919, the British relinquished the northern section of the Upper Galilee containing Tel Hai, Metula, Hamra, and Kfar Giladi to the French jurisdiction. After the Arab attack on Tel Hai in 1920, it was temporarily abandoned. Ten months later, the settlers returned. Several older buildings stand on the kibbutz that memorialize previous battles on the site, before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

Between 1916 and 1932, the population totaled 40-70. In 1932, the kibbutz absorbed 100 newcomers, mainly young immigrants. From 1922 to 1948, between 8,000-10,000 Jewish immigrants were smuggled into Palestine through Kibbutz Giladi, circumventing the Mandatory ban on Jewish immigration.The immigrants came from Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan and Eastern Europe.

In an operation known as Mivtzah HaElef, 1,300 Jewish children were smuggled out of Syria between 1945 and 1948.At the kibbutz, the children were dressed in work clothes and hidden in the kibbutz chicken coops and cowsheds.

On August 6, 2006, during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, twelve reserve IDF soldiers were killed after being hit by a Katyusha rocket launched by Hezbollah from Southern Lebanon. The group of artillery gunners were gathering on the kibbutz in preparation for action in the conflict.