Tel Katzir 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...

 in northern Israel

Israel

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

. Located to the south 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...

, it falls under the jurisdiction of 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 202.

The village was founded in 1949 by a gar'in of Hebrew Scouts and a kvutza

Kvutza

Kvutza or kevutza can be used as:*A definition of an organized group of children consisting of boys and girls graded by age, as used in modern Israel.*It can also refer to any other type of group of individuals...

 of youths from kibbutz Afikim. Its name was adapted from the Arabic name for the area, Tel al-Qasr, and also symbolises agriculture. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion

David Ben-Gurion

' was the first Prime Minister of Israel.Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946...

 refused to accept the name, insisting that it should be called Beit Katzir because it was not a real tell

Tell

A tell or tel, is a type of archaeological mound created by human occupation and abandonment of a geographical site over many centuries. A classic tell looks like a low, truncated cone with a flat top and sloping sides.-Archaeology:A tell is a hill created by different civilizations living and...

. However, after the kibbutz's secretariat had put a case, noting that Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

 was not a real tell, and that Ramat Gan (lit. Garden Heights) was really hilly, they eventually won recognition of their preferred name.

The kibbutz was established on land which belonged to the Palestinian

Palestinian territories

The Palestinian territories comprise the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, the region is today recognized by three-quarters of the world's countries as the State of Palestine or simply Palestine, although this status is not recognized by the...

 village of Samakh

Samakh, Tiberias

Samakh was a Palestinian Arab village located at the southern end of the Lake Tiberias in Palestine . It had a population of 3,320 Arab Muslims and Arab Christians in 1945...

, which was depopulated in 1948.

There is a small museum in the kibbutz about its history and the period between 1948 and 1967.

Notable residents

• Eli Hurvitz
  Eli Hurvitz
  Eli Hurvitz was an Israeli industrialist. He was the Chairman of the Board and former CEO of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries at the time of his death .-Biography:...
  
  (born 1932), industrialist; Chairman of the Board and former CEO of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries