PEKI'IN

family of Mustarabi Jews in Peki'in, 1930s, courtesy, Wikipedia

Peki'in is, today, a mainly Druze town with local council status in Israel's Northern District. It is located a few miles east of Ma'alot-Tarshiha in the Upper Galilee. In 2019 it had a population of 5,893.

According to tradition, the Jewish community of Peki'in has maintained a presence there since the Second Temple period, with an interruption during the 1936–1939 Arab riots. The antiquity, mystery, and wonder surrounding the Jews of Peki'in were added to by the presence of Jewish fellaheen and their claim of being the last group of Jews who were never exiled. These were part of the community of Mustarabi Jews who, along with the Samaritans of the Shechem area, were the true indigenous Palestinians.

In the time of Joshua, the site of Peki’in was allotted to the tribe of Naphtali. Since that time, the border between Israel and the neighboring Phoenician city states would often change. The village Baca in “The Jewish War” is thought to be Peki'in and according to its author Josephus Flavius, it marked the border between the kingdom of Herod Agrippa II, and Tyre. According to the Talmud, Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah headed a Beth Midrash there, and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his son Rabbi Elazar ben Shimon, hid in a cave from the Romans for 13 years. Shimon bar Yochai went on to teach in the city for many years thereafter. The Talmudic scholars Rabbi Abba Oshaya of Tiria and Rabbi Yose of Pekiin are buried in the town; their gravesites have become a place of Jewish pilgrimage ever since.

The presence of a Druze community in the village in the early Mamluk period is attested by the geographer Shams al-Din al-Dimashqi (1257–1327). The Jews of Peki'in are first mentioned in the travel book of R. Moses Basola (1522). He refers to them as "fallaḥim" ("workers of the land"), engaged in agriculture and the breeding of silkworm. Responsa of the Safed rabbis of the 16^th century dealing with mitzvot to be fulfilled only in the Land of Israel – the priestly tithes, the levitical tithes, and the Sabbatical Year, all of which concern Jewish farm workers in Galilee – also testify to the existence of Jewish agriculture in Peki’in. From time to time groups of Jews engaged in commerce and the leasing and tilling of lands; other groups engaged in the study of Torah and the Zohar "under the carob tree of R. Simeon b. Yoḥai." Peki'in was also a summer resort for urban Jews, especially for those from Tiberias. The Jews of the towns sought refuge there when plagues broke out. In the mid-16^th century, Pekiin had a Jewish population of 79 households. It is said some Kohanitic families emigrated from Kafr 'Inan, possibly in the late 16th century, and also from Alma such as the well-known Almani family. In 1602 R. Joseph Trani of Safed visited Peki'in to instruct the local Jews, who were cultivating mulberries for silkworms. In 1742, the kabbalist R. Ḥayyim Attar, who had just arrived in Israel along with his disciples, lived there for about two months. After the severe earthquakes of 1759, many of the victims from Safed fled there including the son of Rabbi Jacob of Vilna, who was from the group led by R. Judah he-Ḥasid, which had emigrated to Israel in 1700. The rabbis of Safed also established a yeshivah for some time in the village. R. Joseph Sofer, author of Edut bi-Yhosef, lived and died in Peki'in. R. Reuben Satanov, author of Ahavat Ẓiyyon, also lived and studied the Zohar there. In 1783 some members of the hasidic aliyah from Russia and Poland established themselves there after leaving Safed and Jerusalem. The ancient synagogue, in active use since the Second Temple period, was destroyed by an earthquake in 1837 but was rebuilt to its present state in 1873. In 1875, French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village and wrote: "The population at present number 600—Druzes, United Greeks, Schismatic Greeks, and a few Jewish families, who descend from the ancient inhabitants of the country. Every year in the summer several hundreds of Jews come here from Tiberias to pass the hot season. Most of these Jews came originally from Europe, and are happy in finding here the last indigenous scions of the ancient national stock...". Peki’in and its Jews was also described in “Survey of Western Palestine” issued by the Palestine Exploration Fund.

During the Arab riots of 1929, Arab gangs often penetrated Peki’in causing all the local Jews, who had lived there since time immemorial, to flee, but they returned soon after. Between that time and the mid-30s, they occasionally sought work in the neighboring Jewish settlements. In 1936, a renewal of Arab riots finally ethnically cleansed the town of its Jews and they sought refuge in the town of Hadera. This time, most did not return after the violence, electing to remain in Hadera, calling themselves the “Hadera Diaspora”. Thus far, the Zinatis are the only family who returned, and this family has dwindled to one member. In the 1945 statistics, the Druze owned over 10,000 dunams of Pekiin land while the Jews managed to hold on to 189 dunams. In 1948 Peki'in was incorporated into Israel; part of the Arab inhabitants left, and Jews – new immigrants – were settled there. The ancient synagogue and the cemetery were renovated with the assistance of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, second president of Israel, and are considered historical sites. The traditional tombs of R. Oshayah of Tiria and R. Yose of Peki'in were also repaired. In 1955, the moshav Peki'in ha-Ḥadashah ("New Peki'in") was established above Ein Tiria. The new settlers arrived from Tangier, Fez, and Marrakesh. In July 2006, Peki'in was hit by Katyusha rockets launched by Hezbollah, causing significant damage to homes and orchards.

In 2011, the Israeli government approved an aid program of NIS 680 million ($184M) for housing, education and tourism upgrades in Peki'in and other Druze communities in northern Israel. The Druze Youth Movement in Israel, a movement with 19 branches around the country and a membership of 12,000, has its headquarters in Peki'in. The founder of the movement is Hamad Amar, an Israeli Druze member of the Knesset from Shfaram, who established it to pass on Druze heritage to the younger generation while developing a sense of national Israeli pride. Margalit Zinati, presently the last Mustarabi Jew in the town, has remained there to keep alive the memory of the town's vanishing Jewish heritage. 

NORTH AFRICA (TAMAZGHA)

The indigenous people of North Africa, the Berbers, or more properly, the Amazigh, have long suffered under the yoke of Arab supremacism. Often referred to as the "Maghreb", the Amazigh, instead, refer to their ancestral homeland as "Tamazgha", presently under Arab occupation. For more information on the indigenous people of Tamazgha, see postings under Algiers; Algeria; Atlas Mountains; Cyrenaica; Fez; Djerba; er Riadh; Libya; Casablanca; Morocco. More Berber postings to come.

NEHARDEA, ANBAR, AND THE SURROUNDING AREA

banks of the Euphrates near Nehardea, courtesy,
docs.google.com

Nehardea was an ancient city in historic Assyria, today, Arab-occupied “Iraq”. Today, archaeologists and historians have identified the town of Anbar as being adjacent or identical to Nehardea, lying a short distance from the present-day town of Fallujah, formerly the Babylonian Jewish center of Pumbedita.

Nehardea was originally known as Misiche and dates back to at least 3000 BCE as was evidenced by the archaeological research of the local artificial mound Tel Aswad. As a major crossing point of the Euphrates, at or near the junction with the Royal Canal, and occupying the northernmost point of the complex irrigation network of the Sawad, the town was of considerable strategic significance. Nevertheless, it was conquered several times in ancient history - by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Parthians. Centuries, later, it became one of the earliest centers of Babylonian Judaism and headed by an exilarch. As the seat of the exilarch, the local Jewish community traditionally has traced its origin back to King Jehoiachin of Judah who was brought over during the Babylonian Captivity in 586 BCE. According to Sherira Gaon, 10^th century gaon of the Talmudic Academy in Pumbeditha, Jehoiachin and his coexilarchs built a synagogue at Nehardea, for the foundation of which they used earth and stones which they had brought from Jerusalem, in accordance with the words of Psalms 102:15.  Centuries later, in the early 1^st century CE, two Jewish brothers Anilai and Asinai, natives of Nehardea, founded a semi-autonomous state on the Euphrates, under the Parthian government. The site of Nehardea played a role in the Roman–Persian Wars of the 3rd–4th centuries. As the western gate to central Mesopotamia, it was fortified by the Sasanian ruler Shapur I (r. 241–272) to shield his capital, Ctesiphon, from the Roman Empire. After his decisive defeat of the Roman emperor Gordian III at the Battle of Misiche in 244, Shapur renamed the town Firuz Shapur, "victorious Shapur" and maintained an intense interaction with the Greeks and Romans. The granaries in the city’s citadel were internationally well-known. The city was fortified by a double wall, possibly through the use of Roman prison labor. It was later sacked and burned after an agreement with its garrison in March 363 by the Roman emperor Julian during his invasion of the Sasanian Empire. It was rebuilt by Shapur II. By 420, the garrison in Nehardea/Firuz Shapur was manned by Persians. But as the indigenous Assyrian/Syriac Christian community was the dominant, it was attested as a bishopric, both for the Church of the East and for the Syriac Orthodox Church. The names of fourteen of its bishops of the period 486–1074 are known: Narses fl. 540, Simeon fl. 553, Salibazachi fl. 714, Paul fl. 740, Theodosius, John fl. 885, Enos 890, Elias fl. 906-920, Jaballaha fl. 960, Sebarjesus, Elias II fl. 987, Mundar fl. 1028, Maris fl. 1075, and Zacharias fl. 1111.

The city fell to the Arab Rashidun Caliphate who occupied and colonized the whole of Mesopotamia in July 633, after a fiercely fought siege. The Arabs then renamed the site, “Anbar”, a Persian word for granary in reference to the famous granaries in the citadel. About a century later, beginning in 752, Anbar briefly served as capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, maintaining that status for ten years until the founding of the Arab settlement of Baghdad in 762. By the 12^th century, and according to medieval Arabic sources, many of the inhabitants of the town migrated north to found the city of Hdatta south of Mosul.

Al-Khaldiya in the area of Nehardea was founded in 1969 as a settlement for Assyrian Christian families who were displaced as a result of the closure of RAF Habbaniya, though it is now predominantly populated by Sunni Arabs.

Anbar is listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see of the Chaldean Catholic Church, and  established as titular bishopric in 1980. It has had the following incumbents: Titular Archbishop Stéphane Katchou (1980– 1981), as Coadjutor Archeparch of Bassorah of the Chaldeans; Titular Bishop Ibrahim Namo Ibrahim (1982– 1985), as Apostolic Exarch in the United States; Titular Bishop Shlemon Warduni (since 2001), Curial Bishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church.

The area is now entirely deserted, occupied only by mounds of ruins, whose great numbers indicates the city's former importance.

NEGEV DESERT

Zin Valley, Negev Desert, courtesy, Wikipedia

The Negev is the desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. Its largest city and administrative capital, located in the area’s northern half, is Beersheba (pop. 209,687) (also see posting on Beersheba). At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort city of Eilat (also see posting on Eilat). It contains several development towns, including Dimona, Arad and Mitzpe Ramon, as well as a number of small Bedouin towns, including Rahat, Tel as-Sabi and Lakyah. There are also several kibbutzim, including Revivim and Sde Boker; the latter became the home of Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, after his retirement from politics. The Negev covers roughly half of Israel, approximately 4,700 sq mi. It forms an inverted triangle shape whose western side is contiguous with the desert of the Sinai Peninsula, and whose eastern border is the Aravah valley. The Negev’s unique geological features including the craterlike makhteshim (box canyons), which are unique to the region: Makhtesh Ramon, HaMakhtesh HaGadol, and HaMakhtesh HaKatan. The Negev Hills compose the northern and central hill regions, the Paran Plateau, and the Eilat Mountains.

A small population of Arabian leopards, an endangered animal in the Arabian peninsula, survives in the southern Negev. Other carnivora found in the area are the caracal, the Arabian wolf, the golden jackal and the marbled polecat. The Aravah mountain gazelle, a subspecies of the mountain gazelle, manages to survive but the dorcas gazelle is more numerous with some 1,000–1,500. Some 350 to 500 Nubian ibex live in the Negev Highlands and in the Eilat Mountains. The Negev shrew is a rare species of mammal found only in Israel. The Negev tortoise is a critically endangered species that currently lives only in the sands of the western and central Negev Desert. Animals that were reintroduced after extinction in the wild or local extinction respectively are the Asiatic wild ass, the Persian fallow deer, and the Arabian oryx. The Negev is the only place where the Arabian oryx can flourish because nowhere else in the Middle East can poaching be controlled. 

According to the Book of Genesis chapter 13, Abraham lived for a while in the Negev after being banished from Egypt (Genesis 13:1,3). During the Exodus journey to the Promised Land, Moses sent twelve scouts into the Negev to assess the land and population (Numbers 13:17). During the time of Joshua, the northern part of the Negev became the southern extent of Israelite settlement in Canaan and the area was allotted to the tribes of Judah and Shimon which was an enclave of Judah in the southwest. Kings Saul and David fended off the Amalekites in the area. The entirety of the Negev was later part of the Kingdom of Solomon, who, as with his successors as kings of Judah, set up fortresses to guard the routes to Elath and Egypt. In the 9th century BCE, development and expansion of mining in both the Negev and Edom coincided with the rise of the Assyrian Empire. In the 8^th century BCE, Beersheba became the region's capital and center for trade. Uzziah made the greatest effort to develop the Negev, maintaining the communications with Elath through this region, and, apart from extending agriculture (ii Chron. 26:10), built large fortresses at Kadesh (see posting on Kadesh Barnea), Arad, Ḥorvat 'Uza, and other sites. After the return from Babylonian exile, Jewish connections with the Negev in the post-biblical period were tenuous. The region’s northern part was held by King Alexander Yannai (Jannaeus), a Maccabee of the House of Hasmon.

Since the Arab conquest in the 7^th century and especially since the Crusader conquests in the 12^th and 13^th centuries, the region was almost abandoned and became a desert wasteland save for the major coastal cities and major Jewish centers of Gaza and Rafiah (see posting on Gaza) and a few scattered Bedouin tribes. In later centuries, other Bedouin tribes migrated to the Negev area, some were of Jewish ancestry such as the el Huzayel clan. At the earliest stages of the modern Jewish return to the land, the Negev was visualized as a possible area of settlement by men like Z.D. Levontin, who aimed at founding a settlement south of Gaza (1881–2). Like other Jews at the beginning of the 20^th century, however, they had to abandon attempts at purchasing holdings, mainly because Bedouin vendors could not produce title deeds entered in the land registry for the tracts they offered. Attention was again directed to the Negev when Theodor Herzl took up Davis Trietsch's proposal of the El-Arish Project (1903), and a daring plan for a Jewish-Bedouin alliance was also put forward. After World War i, veterans of the Jewish Legion tried to settle on state land offered by the British authorities near the tell of Arad, but they despaired when no water was found.

Although historically, the Negev area south of Beersheba, was part of a separate region, it was added to the proposed area of Mandatory Palestine, on July 10, 1922, having been conceded by British representative St John Philby, British representative of Eastern Palestine (aka Trans-Jordan). After the end of the 1930s, the Jewish National Fund took over, securing and enlarging scattered holdings in the Negev which had been acquired beforehand by Jewish individuals. Thus the three "observation villages"–Gevulot, Beit Eshel, and Revivim–were set up in 1943. In 1946, in response to the British-created Morrison–Grady Plan which would have allotted the area to an Arab state, the Jewish Agency enacted the 11 points in the Negev plan to begin local Jewish settlement. Four more communities were established preceding the outbreak of the War of Independence in December 1947. All these outposts were modestly supplied with water from two pipelines drawn from the Nir Am and Gevar'am wells in the southern Coastal Plain. As a result, the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine allotted a majority of the area to the Jewish State which later became Israel. During the War of Independence, Israel secured its Negev allotment and then some. The one exception was the area in and around Gaza City, which became known as the Gaza Strip. Since the end of the war in 1949, the region’s population has grown exponentially. In the early years of the state, it absorbed many of the Jewish refugees from Arab countries, with the Israeli government setting up many development towns, such as Arad, Sderot and Netivot. Whereas the Negev Bedouin population, of which about 15,000 remained in the Negev after 1948, and increased to about 27,000 in 1969, Jewish settlement was the principal factor causing the population density especially in the Beersheba subdistrict to increase. Deep well drillings in the 1960s yielded water in previously unsuspected quantities.

In the late 60s, a group of African-Americans from Chicago who claimed to be descended from the ancient Israelites, settled in Dimona. Today, the Hebrew Israelites are a vibrant community, living mainly in Dimona, who contribute greatly to Israeli society in spite of the many obstacles the Israeli government puts in their way. In the past two decades, the Negev has also become home to many of the Israel Defense Forces' major bases. Blueprint Negev is a Jewish National Fund project introduced in 2005. The $600 million project hopes to attract 500,000 new Jewish residents to the Negev by improving transportation infrastructure, establishing businesses, developing water resources and introducing programs to protect the environment. A planned artificial desert river, swimming pools and golf courses raised concerns among environmentalists. As of 2010, the Negev was home to some 630,000 people (or 8.2% of Israel's population).

In October 2012, global travel guide publisher Lonely Planet rated the Negev second on a list of the world's top ten regional travel destinations for 2013, noting its current transformation through development.

Today, the Negev is home to such institutions as Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, whose faculties include the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research and the Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies, both located on the Midreshet Ben-Gurion campus adjacent to Sde Boker.

Other sites include: Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center, Ashalim and the Ashalim Power Station, the Rotem Industrial Complex outside of Dimona, the Negev Nuclear Research Center and reactor, Yatir Forest and Winery, Carmel’s boutique winery at Ramat Arad, the Tishbi Vineyards at Sde Boker, the Barkan Vineyard at Tel Arad, Carmey Avdat - Israel's first solar-powered winery, the Ḥaluẓah, Shunrah, and Agur dunes, Ne'ot Hovav, Ḥaẓevah, Avronah, Yotvatah, Sa'īdiyin, Wadi el-Na'am, Naḥal Besor, Naḥal Be'er Sheva, Naḥal Ḥevron, Naḥal Gerar, Naḥal Paran, the Dead Sea (see posting on the Dead Sea), Mt. Ramon, Mt. Sagi, Mt. Loẓ, Mt. Arif, the Sheluḥat Noẓah ridge, the Edom Mountains, Zin Canyon, and the Sedom salt flats.

MOUNT NEBO

view of Mount Nebo, courtesy, Wikipedia

Mount Nebo is located in the mountain range of Abarim, about 2,330 feet above sea level. It borders the Moab Plateau on the east side of the Jordan River opposite Jericho in, what is today, Arab-occupied Eastern Palestine – a.k.a. Jordan. It lies five miles southwest of Heshbon, two miles northwest of Madeba, and nine miles east of the northern end of the Dead Sea.

The Mount Nebo area was where the Israelites encamped on the last stage of their journey during the Exodus (Deut. 32:49). Before the rise of the leadership of Joshua, Moses had already allotted the area to the tribe of Reuben, on condition that they assist their fellow Israelite tribes in conquering the Land of Canaan on the west side of the River. According to Deut. 32:49, it was from Mt. Nebo, that Moses was able to survey the Promised Land before he passed away on this spot. Then god buried him there, but his exact resting place remains unknown to this day. According to Jewish tradition, this was because the priests wished to prevent his resting place from becoming a place of worship so as not to take away from worship of god alone. After the conquest of Canaan, the tribe of Reuben took over its territory and established the town of Nebo near its namesake mountain, becoming the abode of the family of Bela (i Chron. 5:8) for many centuries. But at the same time, ownership of the area was often hotly contested between Israel and Moab. When the united kingdom of Israel split in to, the tribe of Reuben, including the Mount Nebo area, became part of the northern kingdom of Israel. It remained an Israelite possession until the revolt of the Moabite king Mesha against the house of Omri of the northern kingdom. On his stele (lines 14ff.) Mesha describes his conquest of the town of Nebo, the destruction of the sanctuary of the God of Israel before the Moabite god Chemosh and the sacrifice of 7,000 men, boys, women, girls, and maid-servants. The prophets Isaiah (15:2) and Jeremiah (48:1, 22) mention Nebo among the cities of Moab in their descriptions of the "burdens" on that land. According to 2 Maccabees (2:4–7), the prophet Jeremiah hid the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant in a cave there during the Babylonian invasion and conquest in 586 BCE. After the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, Mount Nebo and the surrounding area became a place of Christian pilgrimage. A small Aramaic-speaking monastery was built on the mountain which they called “Siagha”, an Aramaic word meaning monastery. Historian Eusebius refers to the town of Nebo as a ruined town and during the Byzantine period, the Theotokos Chapel was built on the site on the mountain where many Christians suppose Moses was buried. This chapel was first mentioned in an account of a pilgrimage made by a lady Aetheria in 394 CE. The Diakonikon Baptistery was built in 597. Both were, long ago, abandoned. When the Arabs came to the area, they named this mountain “Jebel Naba”.

In 1927, a group attempt to find the Ark of the Covenant on Mount Nebo, led by the explorer and adventurer AF Futterer, President of the American Jerusalem Bible Institute of Los Angeles, did not materialize due to Futterer’s failure to get the proper permits from the British and Arab occupation authorities. So he ended up going alone. His trip turned out to be fruitless but he did find a human skeleton in one of the caves on the mountain. No one thought much of it at the time. A few years later, the Franciscan church, represented by the Franciscan Bible School in Jerusalem, attempted to continue Futterer’s work and, in 1930, offered to buy the site from the Bedouin tribe that owned it. Negotiations for purchase were long and drawn out but by 1932, Mount Nebo finally came under Franciscan ownership and archaeological expeditions began immediately. Their intention was to make it a tourist destination. By 1933, their expeditions began to bear fruit. They discovered the remains of the Byzantine-era church as well as the monastery. Several mosaics were also discovered including a mosaic of the Temple in Jerusalem located in the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin, and also a Samaritan inscription. The Moses Memorial that houses the Byzantine mosaics was closed for renovation from 2007 to 2016. It reopened on October 15, 2016. 

NAVEH

ruins of ancient Naveh (Nawa), courtesy, Wikipedia

The city of Nawa, originally Naveh, is today located in the Arab-occupied part of the Golan Heights, just a few miles east of the Israeli portion of the Golan in the Arab-occupied country of Syria. The Arab occupation authorities have made this town, with a population, as of this writing, of over 59,000 Arab settlers, a part of their so-called province of Daraa Governorate. (The town of Daraa is named after the ancient Jewish town of Edre’i, located some 20 miles to the south.) As with the majority of places in the Arab-occupied territories of the Middle East and North Africa, including Naveh, most, or all, vestiges of a Jewish presence, ancient or otherwise, have been mostly obliterated (with the enthusiastic support of the United Nations and the EU).

During the time of Joshua, Naveh, as with the entirety of today’s governorate, was allotted to the eastern half of the Israelite tribe of Menashe. It was probably identical to the town of Nobah, mentioned in Numbers 32:42. It supposedly became the burial place of Shem, son of Noah, ancestor of the Shemiim, the Semites, and was also known as the dwelling place of the Hebrew prophet Job. Naveh had been a mostly Jewish hamlet for centuries but experienced a period of immense growth during the Roman and Byzantine eras. The city was mentioned in the 3rd century “Mosaic of Tel Rehov” (in the Bet She’an area of the Jordan Valley). In the 5^th century, it was a seat of Torah learning and Rabbi Tanhuma bar Abba, amora of the 5^th generation, lived there. Naveh was also referred to by the Byzantine Christian traveler and geographer George of Cyprus in his "Descriptio orbis romani" in the 7th century.  It still contained a small Jewish community in the Middle Ages, but eventually, the Jews moved away. In the early 19^th century, two German archaeologists discovered the ancient synagogue in the area and began to study its lintel above the doorway entrance. It was found that this lintel had been dated to the fourth to fifth centuries. In later years, archaeologists would come across numerous other findings, notably the discovery of basalt architectural artifacts dating to the Byzantine period and bearing Jewish symbols—most prominently the menorah. 

NAHALAL

aerial view of Nahalal, courtesy Wikipedia

Nahalal is a moshav in northern Israel, just south of the Nahal Shimron and roughly 9 miles west of Nazareth. It is governed by the Jezreel Valley Regional Council. In 2019 it had a population of 930.

Nahalal is best known for its general layout, as designed by Richard Kauffmann: slightly oval, similar to a spoke wheel with its public buildings at the "hub" and individual plots of agricultural land radiating from it like spokes with symmetrically placed roads creating eight equal sectors, an inner ring of residential buildings, and an outer ring road.

During Biblical times, Nahalal was allotted to the tribe of Zvulun but designated a Levitical city belonging to the Merari clan. Among the archaeological artifacts found in the area, was an ancient Jewish inscription of the word "Sabbath" written on a rock. In the Talmud (tj, Meg. 1:1, 70a), Nahalal is identified with Mahalol, which corresponds to the present-day Arab settlement of Ma’alul. In 1850, explorer Rabbi Yehoseph Schwarz visited the area and definitely identified this settlement with the Biblical Nahalal.

In 1921, the land was sold by the Sursock family of Beirut, to the Zionist, Palestine Land Development Company, soon to transfer ownership to the Jewish National Fund. Nahalal’s founders immigrated to Palestine from Eastern Europe as part of the Second and Third Aliyah between 1904 and 1914, at the end of Ottoman rule. They saw that the allotted land contained small rivulets which transformed the plain into marshes that attracted malaria-spreading mosquitoes. Heeding the warnings of experts, such as Dr. Hillel Yaffe, the Jewish pioneers temporarily settled on a nearby hill, near Ma'lul. The swamps were drained and the pioneers, eventually, came down from the hill and divided the former swampland into 80 equal parcels, 75 to the members and 5 to the Nahalal agricultural school. They had a somewhat different ideology from the socialist kibbutz model where everything was collectively owned. Thus, Nahalal became the first moshav ovdim (workers' cooperative agricultural settlement) in Mandatory Palestine where individual farms were privately owned. 

In 1929, a Girls' Agricultural Training Farm was established at Nahalal by Hana Meisel of the Women's International Zionist Organization, and in the 1940s it became a co-educational farming school of the Youth Aliyah movement.

More water became available in the 1930s from the *Mekorot regional network and deep wells were drilled in the vicinity. Farming then became more intensive, fruit orchards were added, and existing branches expanded. The main farming branches, aside from the fruit orchards, were dairy cattle, poultry, flowers, and field crops.

Other major sites in Nahalal include: the Cheese with Ephrat culinary school; Nahalal High School; the Galilee International Management Institute; the public pool; the Bet Haam cultural center; Danieli Olive Oil grocery store; Lavido Cosmetics; and Nahalal Junction.