For the bus company, see Afikim (company)

Afikim (company)

Afikim is an Israeli bus company that operates on routes connecting the Gush Dan and Sharon plain regions with the western Samaria region of the West Bank. The company was founded in 2008 and is co-owned by three other transportation companies. It began operating on 1 September 2009 and now...

Afikim is an Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i kibbutz

Kibbutz

A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...

 affiliated with the Kibbutz Movement

Kibbutz Movement

The Kibbutz Movement is the largest settlement movement for kibbutzim in Israel. It was formed in 1999 by a partial merger of the United Kibbutz Movement and Kibbutz Artzi.-United Kibbutz Movement:...

 located in the Jordan Valley

Jordan Valley (Middle East)

The Jordan Valley forms part of the larger Jordan Rift Valley. It is 120 kilometers long and 15 kilometers wide, where it runs from Lake Tiberias in the north to northern Dead Sea in the south. It runs for an additional 155 kilometer south of the Dead Sea to Aqaba, an area also known as Wadi...

 within three kilometers of the Sea of Galilee

Sea of Galilee

The Sea of Galilee, also Kinneret, Lake of Gennesaret, or Lake Tiberias , is the largest freshwater lake in Israel, and it is approximately in circumference, about long, and wide. The lake has a total area of , and a maximum depth of approximately 43 m...

, and within the jurisdiction of the Emek HaYarden Regional Council

Emek Hayarden Regional Council

The Emek HaYarden Regional Council , is a regional council in the Jordan River Valley between the Sea of Galilee in the north and Beit She'an in the south. It was the first regional council in Israel, formed in 1949....

. In 2006 it had a population of 976.

Etymology

The name Afikim means "riverbeds", and refers to the Jordan River and its tributary, the Yarmukh.

History

Russian Jews affiliated with the Hashomer Hatzair

Hashomer Hatzair

Hashomer Hatzair is a Socialist–Zionist youth movement founded in 1913 in Galicia, Austria-Hungary, and was also the name of the group's political party in the Yishuv in the pre-1948 British Mandate of Palestine...

 movement organised in 1924 and settled in the area of Wazia in the Upper Galilee

Upper Galilee

The Upper Galilee is a geographical-political term in use since the end of the Second Temple period, originally referring to a mountainous area overlapping the present northern Israel and southern Lebanon, its borders being the Litani river in the north, the Mediterranean Sea in the west, the Beit...

. In 1932 the group moved to its current location on a tract of land belonging to Degania Bet

Degania Bet

-External links:*...

, where it continued to absorb groups of Zionist-Social-Democratic-oriented European Jews. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War

1948 Arab-Israeli War

The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...

, Afikim was subjected to frequent shelling by Syrian

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

 and Iraqi

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

 forces, and was a stronghold of Palmach

Palmach

The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...

 activity. Afterwards it was a center for training Nahal

Nahal

Nahal is an Israel Defense Forces infantry brigade. Historically, it refers to a program that combines military service and establishment of new agricultural settlements, often in outlying areas...

 soldier-farmers. During the split of the Kibbutz Meuhad movement, Afikim, unlike many other kibbutzim, did not split up into two villages. Rather it joined the Mapai

Mapai

Mapai was a left-wing political party in Israel, and was the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger into the Israeli Labor Party in 1968...

-affiliated faction which went on to found the Ihud Kibbutzim. In 1977, Afikim hosted 66 refugee

Refugee

A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...

s from Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

.

Economy

Afikim owns some 6 sq. km of land whereon it grows banana

Banana

Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red....

s, date palm

Date Palm

The date palm is a palm in the genus Phoenix, cultivated for its edible sweet fruit. Although its place of origin is unknown because of long cultivation, it probably originated from lands around the Persian Gulf. It is a medium-sized plant, 15–25 m tall, growing singly or forming a clump with...

s, subtropical flora, and grain

GRAIN

GRAIN is a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems. Our support takes the form of independent research and analysis, networking at local, regional and...

s. It also engages in aquaculture

Aquaculture

Aquaculture, also known as aquafarming, is the farming of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, molluscs and aquatic plants. Aquaculture involves cultivating freshwater and saltwater populations under controlled conditions, and can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is the...

 and dairy farming. It operates SAE Afikim, a dairy equipment company, and Afikim Electric Mobilizers, a producer of electric carts. In the 1980s, Afikim underwent an economic crisis and embarked on a program of partial decollectivization.

In 2010, Afikim announced its partnership in a half-billion-dollar milk production project in Vietnam. The project involves establishing a dairy of 30,000 cows to supply 500,000 liters of milk a day, about 40% of Vietnam's present milk consumption. Afikim will be responsible for all stages of the enterprise, including breeding and preparing land for crops that will be used as feed.

Notable residents

Yitzchak Tavori, leader of the 1930s anarchist group The Free Socialists, and the Israeli painter Leo Roth

Leo Roth

Leo Roth , also known as Lior Roth, was an Israeli painter, born in 1914 in Austria-Hungary. In 1920, Roth moved to Germany and, in 1933, immigrated to Palestine. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and completed frescoes in Italy and France in the 1950s...

are members of Afikim. Singer Lior Yeiyni and journalist and writer Assaf Inbari were born on Afikim.