GEZER

tel of ancient Gezer with kibbutz in right background, courtesy, BiblePlaces.com

The ancient town of Gezer today is a kibbutz in central Israel. Located in the Shephelah region between Modi'in, Ramle and Rehovot, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Gezer Regional Council. In 2018 it had a population of 286.

Gezer, originally a Canaanite town, was conquered by Joshua, but the Canaanite inhabitants were spared. It was designated a Levitical city, allotted to the tribe of Ephraim and located at the very edge of the tribal territory. At the beginning of the 10^th century BCE, possibly during the reign of King Solomon, Gezer was conquered by the Egyptians but then the Pharaoh gave it to Solomon as a present (I Kings ix. 15-17). In the 4^th century BCE, the town, along with the rest of the country, fell under Hellenist rule under Alexander the Great. It was later populated by Greek immigrants who settled there alongside the indigenous Jewish inhabitants. At the time of the Maccabees, Gezer, still under Hellenist rule, became a fortified city under Bacchides, a Hellenist general, but was conquered by Simon the Maccabee, who drove out the Greek settlers and their Jewish collaborators and settled it with faithful Jews according to the Book of Maccabees iv. 15; vii. 45; ix. 52; xiii. 43, 53; xiv. 7, 34; xv. 28; xvi. 1. Under the Roman general Gabinius, “Gazara” became the chief town of its district.

Gezer remained inhabited by Jews even after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem but abandoned a few centuries afterwards. The town eventually became a heap of ruins in which state in remained for many centuries. By the beginning of the 19^th century, the Arab settlement of Abu Shusha had long been established adjacent to the site. In 1869, some of the village lands near the ruined site of Gezer (as yet, not identified as such until 1873) and adjacent to Abu Shusha were purchased by Melville Peter Bergheim, a banker from Germany who had settled in Israel many years previously and had later established a bank. According to rumor, he was born Jewish but had converted to Protestant Christianity as an adult before settling in Israel. Bergheim established a modern agricultural farm on his newly-purchased land using contemporary European methods and equipment. His ownership of the land was hotly contested by the villagers, by legal and illegal means, including the murder of his son Peter. After the Bergheim Bank became insolvent in 1892, his land, through an agreed-upon court arrangement, was managed jointly with a government receiver, Serapion Pasha, a resident of Jaffa. But legal disputes still plagued the area and in 1913, part of the land was sold by Serapion to the villagers and the rest to the Jewish Colonization Association, financially backed by the Baron de Rothschild. Disputes were finally settled when the JCA and Rothschild gave the Arab villagers one third of their purchase on a temporary lease basis until more reasonable accommodations were found. Aside from the legal disputes, Gezer/Abu Shusha was also plagued by constant attacks by roving Bedouin as well as from poor living conditions. In 1922, the land was sold to the Maccabean Land Company, a British Jewish company under Norman Bentwich, barrister. In 1945, the kibbutz was established. The earliest pioneers who settled there were immigrants from Europe, who named the kibbutz after the biblical city, Gezer, near which was the tel of the ancient town.

On June 10, 1948 during the War of Independence, the day after the Yiftah and Harel brigades attempted to take the site of Latrun, an Arab Legion battalion, supported by irregulars and a dozen armored cars, attacked the kibbutz which was defended by only 68 Haganah soldiers. After four hours of battle, the kibbutz fell. 39 defenders and 2 Arab Legionnaires were killed, a dozen kibbutzniks escaped and those who remained, were taken prisoner. It was then occupied by the Arabs but was later taken back by two Palmach squads. Because of its strategic location, it then served as a vantage point in Operation Dani (July 1948), which resulted in the inclusion of the towns of Ramleh and Lydda (Lod) in the State of Israel. After the war it was rebuilt, but came apart in 1964 due to social difficulties. The current kibbutz was founded on 4 July 1974, by a Gar'in group from North America.

The kibbutz has developed since and in the ensuing years, it would run various enterprises including a factory for adhesives and a special educational park, Ginat Shorashim, dedicated to peace and the environment and rooted in Jewish sources. A pumping station of the Yarkon-Negev water pipeline is located nearby. In 1983, Kibbutz Gezer Field, one of the few regulation baseball fields in Israel, was established, funded by American donors as well as by the Jewish National Fund. The first game was played within a few months. A backstop, covered benches for players and a refreshment stand were added at a later date. In 1989, a scoreboard and outfield fence were erected for the Maccabiah Games. In addition, the Gezer Pool, temporarily closed as of this writing, was a very popular local recreation site and is located near the Nahal Azaria.

Since 2014, a red-hair event has been held at the Kibbutz for the local Israeli red hair community. However, the number of attendees has to be restricted due to the risk of rocket attacks (which the Zionist government in Israel refuses to stop), leading to anger in the red-hair community.