Neot Semadar formerly Shizafon , is a 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...

 located in the Arava

Arava

Arava can refer to:*Arava, Estonia, a village in Anija Commune, Harju County, Estonia.*Arabah, a section of the Great Rift Valley between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba in Israel and Jordan....

 in southern Israel

Israel

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

. it falls under the jurisdiction of Hevel Eilot Regional Council

Hevel Eilot Regional Council

Hevel Eilot Regional Council is a regional council in the South District of Israel, near the city of Eilat. It is the southernmost regional council in Israel....

.

History

Neot Semadar is located in the southern Negev

Negev

The Negev is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The Arabs, including the native Bedouin population of the region, refer to the desert as al-Naqab. The origin of the word Neghebh is from the Hebrew root denoting 'dry'...

  about 70 km. north of Eilat. The kibbutz was established in 1989, on the grounds of an abandoned kibbutz, Shizafon. Neot Semadar is as an organic community featuring architecturally unique buildings with passive cooling towers. The Art Center houses 14 workshops for Stained glass

Stained glass

The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...

, ceramic

Ceramic

A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...

s, textile

Textile

A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...

, wood

Wood

Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...

 and metal

Metal

A metal , is an element, compound, or alloy that is a good conductor of both electricity and heat. Metals are usually malleable and shiny, that is they reflect most of incident light...

s. The building is insulated with mud bricks, with "air conditioning" supplied by a desert cooling tower.

Neot Semadar has a population of 90 adults, 70 children and 50 volunteers.

Economy

The economy is based on agriculture, with 500 dunam

Dunam

A dunam or dönüm, dunum, donum, dynym, dulum was a non-SI unit of land area used in the Ottoman Empire and representing the amount of land that can be plowed in a day; its value varied from 900–2500 m²...

s of organically cultivated vineyards, deciduous trees, olives, date plantations and an herb garden. Olive oil

Olive oil

Olive oil is an oil obtained from the olive , a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps...

is produced in a cold press set up with assistance from ICA and Israel's Ministry of Industry and Trade in 2001. The high-quality oil has been conferred the highest grade by Israel's Olive Council.

The kibbutz operates a boutique organic winery and produces a variety of cheeses from fresh goat milk. Its roadside restaurant, Pundak Neot Semadar, offers vegetarian food and sells the kibbutz's organic products.
The Art Center is open to visitors.