Ein Harod

Ein Harod (Hebrew: עֵין חֲרוֹד‎) was a kibbutz in Israel between 1921 and 1952, when it split into Ein Harod (Ihud) and Ein Harod (Meuhad). It was located in the north of the country near Mount Gilboa and was named after the nearby Well of Harod, Ein Harod in Hebrew.

The original kibbutz was located near the 1260 battlefield of Ayn Jalut, a battle in which the Mongols suffered their first defeat at the hands of the Mamluks, which arguably saved the Mamluk sultanate from annihilation.

The kibbutz was founded in 1921 by Russian Jewish pioneers of the Third Aliyah.

In 1921, members of the Gdud HaAvoda "Work Battalion", at a time when their road work was decreasing, set up a work camp in the Harod Valley, the eastern extension of the Jezreel Valley, at the foot of Mount Gilboa. In 1921, 35 young people from the Gdud pitched tents at the Harod Spring. The group, led by Shlomo Levkovitch (Lavi), began to farm land which the Palestine Land Development Company had purchased from the Arab village of Nuris, in the eastern part of the Jezreel Valley. The Gdud members worked here at draining the swamps, a permanent source of malaria. According to a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, Ein Harod had a population of 244 Jews. The Tel Yosef-Ein Harod group split in July 1923 over differences concerning economic autonomy, with two-thirds of the group settling Tel Yosef and the rest, Ein Harod. In 1923, the group established a kibbutz named for the spring (Ein Harod, "Harod Spring" ), which is mentioned in the Bible in connection with judge Gideon (Judges 7:1). While it's sometimes considered that Ein Ḥarod was founded in 1921 and Tel Yosef in 1923, the fact remains that together they formed one farming unit. In 1924, the Ein Harod group was joined by members of the Havurat HaEmek group. In 1925, under the leadership of Yitzhak Tabenkin, Ein Harod became the center of countrywide kibbutz movement joined by members of Yagur, Ashdot Yaakov and Ayelet HaShahar, forming the basis of HaKibbutz HaMeuhad. Ein Harod became the organizational headquarters of the movement. In 1926, during a breakup of the Gdud HaAvoda along ideological faultlines separating the Marxists from the more moderate leftists, Ein Harod and Tel Yosef ceased their close cooperation.

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