American Zion Commonwealth

The American Zion Commonwealth (Hebrew: קהילת ציון אמריקאית‎‎) was a Zionist settlement corporation that played an important part in the Jewish settlement of Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel.

The American Zion Commonwealth company was founded in the United States in 1914 by American Zionists with the purpose of acquiring lands for Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel. During World War I, the company's activities were suspended, but with the conquest of the land by the British and the establishment of the British Mandate, the company returned to full operation. It was most active in the 1920s.

The company acquired land in the heart of the western Jezreel Valley on which it established Moshav Balfouria in 1922. The town was named after the English Lord Arthur James Balfour, writer of the Balfour Declaration, which embraced Zionist plans for a Jewish "national home" in Palestine.

In 1924, the company purchased the lands of the village of Afula from an absentee landowner residing in Beirut. In 1925, the city of Afula was established on these lands. Already before the city's founding, the company purchased lands on which a "Children's Village" was founded, which today lies within Afula's boundaries. Its inhabitants were all young, and in World War II the village served as a training camp for the guards and as a glider club. With the establishment of the state, the village became a military base, which was used by the Israeli army until the 1990s.

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