Olesh is a moshav

Moshav

Moshav is a type of Israeli town or settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists during the second aliyah...

 in central Israel

Israel

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

. Located in the Sharon plain, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hefer Valley Regional Council

Hefer Valley Regional Council

The Hefer Valley Regional Council is a regional council in the Hefer Valley region of central Israel.The council covers an area adjacent to Hadera in the north, to Netanya in the south, to the Mediterranean in the west and to Tulkarm and the Green Line in the east...

. In 2006 it had a population of 796.

The moshav was founded in 1951 by immigrants

Aliyah

Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...

 from Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

, and was initially named Be'erotayim

Be'erotayim

Be'erotayim is a moshav in central Israel. Located in the Sharon plain and covering 3,500 dunams, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hefer Valley Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 666....

 Bet. It was later renamed Olesh due to the large chicory

Chicory

Common chicory, Cichorium intybus, is a somewhat woody, perennial herbaceous plant usually with bright blue flowers, rarely white or pink. Various varieties are cultivated for salad leaves, chicons , or for roots , which are baked, ground, and used as a coffee substitute and additive. It is also...

 plants in the area. The moshav was built on land which had previously belonged to the depopulated Arab

Palestinian people

The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...

 village of Qaqun

Qaqun

Qaqun was a Palestinian Arab village located northwest of the city of Tulkarm at the only entrance to Mount Nablus from the coastal Sharon plain....

.

In 1953 it absorbed more immigrants from North Africa

Jewish exodus from Arab lands

The Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries was a mass departure, flight and expulsion of Jews, primarily of Sephardi and Mizrahi background, from Arab and Muslim countries, from 1948 until the early 1970s...

, and in 1965 took in new residents from Beit She'an. In the late 1990s it doubled in size as part of an expansion plan.