Yehiam

Yehi'am יְחִיעָם‎
Yehi'am dining hall
Yehi'am
Coordinates: 32°59′45″N 35°13′14″E / 32.99583°N 35.22056°E / 32.99583; 35.22056Coordinates: 32°59′45″N 35°13′14″E / 32.99583°N 35.22056°E / 32.99583; 35.22056
District	Northern
Council	Mateh Asher
Affiliation	Kibbutz Movement
Founded	1946
Founded by	Hashomer Hatzair members
Population (2015)	596
Website	www.yechiam.org.il

Yehi'am (Hebrew: יְחִיעָם‎) is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located the western Upper Galilee, eight miles east of the coastal town of Nahariya and 14 miles south-east of the border with Lebanon it falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Asher Regional Council. In 2015 it had a population of 596. It is located around 365 meters above sea level

Yehiam is situated next to the ruins of the Ottoman-era castle of Jiddin, built on top of the 13th-century Crusader castle of Judin.

Yehiam was founded by a group of the socialist Zionist Hashomer Hatzair youth movement – Holocaust survivors from Hungary and members from Palestine – who named themselves Kibbutz HaSela (lit. The Rock), whereas "kibbutz" is still understood here as a wandering "collective", not as a settlement. For a while the HaSela collective lived in tents in the area of Kiryat Haim, looking for an appropriate place to settle. Eventually, on 26 November 1946, Kibbutz Yehiam was established at the site of the medieval castle, with only the men taking residence, at first within the castle and then in tents at its foot, while the women, children and some men remained at Kiryat Haim, where they worked in order to support the group up at the castle. According to one guidebook, there were 50 founding members, who transformed the castle ruins into a military training camp. The UN Partition resolution came almost exactly one year later, on 29 November 1947, placing the kibbutz within the envisaged Arab state, rather than the Jewish one. The new name, Yehiam, was adopted in honour of Yehiam Weitz, son of Jewish Agency official Joseph Weitz, who had been killed not far away, near the Arab village of al-Kabri, in the "Night of the Bridges", a Palmach operation which took place on 16–17 June 1946. The decision to establish the new kibbutz was taken after consultations with Joseph Weitz.