Hartuv

Hartuv (Hebrew: הרטוב‎‎) or Har-Tuv (lit. "Mount of Goodness") was an agricultural colony in the Judean Hills established in 1883 on land purchased from the Arab village of Artuf by English missionaries. It was destroyed in the 1929 Palestine riots but was rebuilt in 1930. In 1948 it was abandoned again. Hartuv was the starting point for the Convoy of 35 during the 1948 war. Hartuv is now an industrial zone near Beit Shemesh.

In the early 1870s, the Spanish consul in Jerusalem bought over 5,000 dunams of land from the villagers of Artuf, which he sold to the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews. After the pogroms against the Jews in Eastern Europe in 1882, the society used some of the money raised to help the Jewish refugees to purchase land in Artuf. Towards the end of 1883, 24 Jewish families were settled there, each receiving 150 dunams of farmland, farm animals and tools. Due to economic difficulties and the lack of water, some of the land was leased to Arabs. After living for some time in tents, a wooden hut was built where all the families lived together. They were obliged to attend Sunday meetings and send their children to the missionary school, but most of the colonists remained practicing Jews.

In 1895, the Bulgarian Hibbat Zion movement bought the 5,000-dunam farm from the London Jews Society and renamed it Har-Tuv (lit. Mountain of Good). Twelve Jewish families settled there and tried to earn a living from agriculture. Due to the poor quality of the soil, and lack of water, seeds and work implements, life in Hartuv was a struggle. In 1900, one of the settlers inaugurated a carriage service to Jerusalem.

In his 1912-13 literary almanac, Luah le'eretz yisrael, historian Abraham Moses Luncz wrote: "Artuf (Har-Tuv), founded in 1895, about 10 minutes from D'ieban along the route of the Jerusalem-Yafo railroad, 101 inhabitants, Sephardi Jews of Bulgarian origin."

During the 1929 riots Hartuv was destroyed by Arabs. The residents fled to Jaffa. Invoking the Collective Punishments Ordinance, the British Mandatory authorities heavily fined the Arab villages whose residents attacked the Jews of Hartuv.

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