Mount Gilboa, courtesy, Wikipedia |
Mt.
Gilboa was the scene in which Saul and his sons were killed in battle with the
Philistines (i Sam. 31:1–6). David cursed the mountain in his lament over Saul
and his sons (ii Sam. 1:21): "Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew
nor rain upon you, neither fields of choice fruits."
In
September 1921, kibbutz Ein Harod was
established at the foot of the mountain, next to the Ein-Harod spring. It was later transferred to the northern side of
the Harod Valley. In the time of the
British Mandate, especially between 1936 and 1939, Gilboa served as a base for
Arab raids on the Jewish settlements in the Harod and Beth-Shean Valleys.
Similarly, the Arab Legion and irregulars fortified positions on Mt. Gilboa
during the War of
Independence in the spring of 1948, with the aim of cutting off
the Harod and Beth-Shean Valley settlements from the west. This danger was
overcome with the occupation of the villages of Zarʿīn and Mazār by a Palmaḥ detachment.
The 1949 armistice border, following the military front, gave Israel a foothold
on the eastern rim of the mountain as well as the northern (where the moshav Gid’onah, originally named “Gilboa” was
established) and left to Jordan most of its inhabited parts in the west and
south.
Apart from the other new
villages that were subsequently founded in the 1950s and 1960s at the foot of
Mt. Gilboa in the west, north, and east, five settlements came into being on
the mountain proper most notably – Nurit,
established in 1950 as a moshav and later transformed into a Gadna training
camp and nature study center, and Ma'aleh
Gilboa, founded in 1962 as a Naḥal outpost, which became a civilian kibbutz
affiliated with the Ha-Kibbutz
ha-Dati movement in 1967. With the liberation of the rest of
the Gilboa mountain chain in the course of the Six Day War in 1967, these
communities entered into a period of prosperity. In 1982, Kibbutz Meirav, also affiliated with Ha-Kibbutz
ha-Dati, was founded, as was Gan Ner
in 1985.
Malkishua is
a drug rehabilitation village founded in 1990 on the site of Kibbutz Meirav
which had moved to its present location about one mile to the north on Mount Avinadav, part of the Gilboa
chain, in 1987. The center was established by the National Authority for the
War on Drugs and the regional council and was named after Malkishua, the son of
King Saul, who fell on this spot while battling the Philistines (1 Samuel
31:2). In 1995 a youth treatment
facility was added, and in 2002, Kedem,
a center for religious youth, was founded. The center is today run by
"Amutat Neve Malkishua" under the authority of the Ministry of Welfare
& Social Services.
In
addition, the Jewish National Fund had planted a forest on Mt. Gilboa with over 3,000,000 trees – one of the
country's largest – and built many access roads and paths opening the mountain
for tourism. A large area has been declared a nature
reserve where plant species exclusive to Mt. Gilboa are
afforded protection.
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