KINGSLEY (originally Kirschner), SIDNEY

KINGSLEY (originally Kirschner), SIDNEY (1906–1995), U.S. playwright. His first success was Men in White (produced by the Group Theater in 1933), a play with a background of hospital life which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1934, and was made into a motion picture. A meticulous researcher, always careful to preserve authentic detail, Kingsley gained a reputation as a "tough" writer, specializing in dramas dealing with social tensions. Slum life in his native New York inspired the theme of Dead End, first staged in 1935 and also filmed. His other plays include Ten Million Ghosts (1936); The World We Make (1939); the farce Lunatics and Lovers (1955); and Night Life (1962), a play about racketeering. The Patriots (1942), a study of early American democracy based on the conflict between Jefferson and Hamilton, was written in collaboration with his wife, Madge Evans. Detective Story (1949) was a "documentary" set in a police station. His dramatization of arthur koestler 's novel, Darkness at Noon (1951), won various awards. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: S.J. Kunitz and H. Haycraft, Twentieth Century Authors (1942), S.V. and first supplement (1955). (Samuel L. Sumberg) KING'S LYNN KING'S LYNN (or Lynn), port on the east coast of Norfolk, England. It had a Jewish community in the 12th century. As the result of the massacre in February 1189, the whole community was exterminated. Jews later resettled there and in 1238 were ordered to maintain one of the royal crossbow-men. A diminutive community was established in 1747 which survived approximately a century. At the outset of the 21st century, it had no organized Jewish community. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Jacobs, Jews of Angevin England (1893), 113–5, 348, 351; Roth, England, index; C. Roth, Rise of Provincial Jewry (1950), 77–81. (Cecil Roth) KINNAROT, VALLEY OF KINNAROT, VALLEY OF (Heb. בִּקְעַת כִּנֲרוֹת), the level plain surrounding the Sea of Galilee (lake kinneret ) on all sides. The Valley of Kinnarot includes the Plain of Ginnosar northwest of the sea; the Butayha Valley at the Jordan's outlet into the sea in the north; the Jordan Valley south of the sea called the Negev ("south") Kinnarot; and the narrow coastal strip surrounding the sea on its other sides. The valley forms part of the Jordan rift which is itself part of the great Syrian-African Rift. The unusual feature of the valley is that it encompasses the Sea of Galilee inside the rift. The valley was settled in very early prehistoric times; remains of early man have been discovered on the lands of ʿUbaydiyya near kibbutz Afikim. Much later prehistoric remains have been found in the caves in Nahal Ammud which is drained by the Gennesareth Plain and the Sea of Galilee, as well as along the eastern shore of the sea near Ein Gev, and on the banks of the Yarmuk near Sha'ar ha-Golan. The area reached a peak of prosperity in the early historical periods (Canaanite and Israelite) when large cities were established there: Bet Yerah (in the early Canaanite period) in the south; Kinneret (Tell ʿUrayma) in the north in the late Canaanite and   Israelite periods, and others. The valley also flourished in the Hellenistic-Roman, Byzantine, and early Arab periods. Great new cities were built on the shore of the sea (Tiberias, Migdal Taricheae, etc.) and the old cities returned to their former prosperity (Bet Yerah, etc.). The valley began to decline during the Crusader wars, when Tiberias and many other settlements were destroyed (the famous battle between Saladin and the combined Christian armies took place nearby at Hattin). It deteriorated further with the Mongolian invasion and reached its lowest point in the last centuries of the Middle Ages when it was overrun by Bedouin tribes from the Arabian peninsula. The revival of Jewish settlement in the valley in the early 20th century brought with it a new wave of prosperity. The valley, situated about 660 ft. (c. 200 m.) below sea level and surrounded by mountains, contains an abundance of water (Sea of Galilee, Jordan River, and Yarmuk River) and its unique climate is characterized by high temperatures and rapid rises in temperature as winter turns into summer. The area is intensively cultivated today. The combination of abundant water and hot climate makes it especially suitable for growing bananas and other crops which require the early ripening found in this area. (Yehoshoua Ben-Arieh) KINNERET KINNERET (Heb. כִּנֶּרֶת), second oldest kibbutz in Israel, just S.E. of Lake Kinneret, affiliated to Ihud ha-Kevuzot veha-Kibbutzim. Its land (Dalayqā-Umm Jūnī) was among the first holdings acquired in the country by the jewish national fund . In 1908, arthur ruppin , director of the Zionist Organization's Palestine Office, decided not to renew the temporary lease to Arab tenants, and set up a training farm there for Jewish laborers. Tensions arose as the farm administrator, M. Bermann, was inclined to regard the Jewish workers, who were Second Aliyah pioneers from Russia, as wage earners rather than trainees and preferred the cheaper, more experienced, and more pliable Arab laborers. After a strike broke out, Ruppin suggested allocating to a group of seven workers the Umm Jūnī lands east of the Jordan, where they then founded deganyah . A second strike, led by berl katznelson , ended in a change of both the administrator and the workers. In May 1912, a girls' agricultural-training farm was added to Kinneret, directed by Hannah Maisel-Shohat. That month, Jewish pioneers from America, members of Ha-Ikkar ha-Za'ir, came to Kinneret under eliezer joffe 's leadership. He worked out the idea of the moshav form of settlement, and among the majority of the Kinneret laborers, the idea of the "large kevuzah" (later called kibbutz) was developed (as opposed to the "small kevuzah" on the Deganyah model). Outstanding leaders of the yishuv and labor movement, e.g., david ben-gurion , shelomo lavi , yizhak tabenkin , Shemuel dayan , and ben zion yisreeli all worked at Kinneret prior to and during World War I. The kibbutz cemetery is known for the famous figures buried there: berl katznelson , Nahman Sirkin, moses hess , ber borochov , avraham harzfeld , and others. The grave of the young poet rachel is in Kinneret, where she lived; a date palm grove, which first served to propagate the date species in Israel, was planted nearby and named "Gan Rahel." naomi shemer , who was born in the kibbutz, was buried there in 2004. After the war, Kinneret absorbed pioneer immigrants of the Third Aliyah, and also served as a camp for members of gedud ha-avodah (labor legion) employed in the construction of the Zemah-Tiberias road. The Ha-Kibbutz ha-Me'uhad movement crystallized at Kinneret. The settlement developed exemplary, fully irrigated, mixed and highly intensive farming. It served as one of the spiritual centers of the Ha-Po'el ha-Za'ir movement and mapai . With the split in Ha-Kibbutz ha-Me'uhad, in 1951, Kinneret joined Ihud ha-Kevuzot ve-ha-Kibbutzim. In 1968, it had 700 inhabitants, dropping to 612 in 2002. The main economic branches are farming (field crops, orchards, citrus groves, and dairy cattle), tourism, industry, and a quarry. The bet yerah excavations and the seminary and convention buildings of Oholo lie within Kinneret's boundaries. A mound near the northwest corner of the lake was identified as the site of biblical Kinneret (chinnereth ). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Ruppin, Three Decades of Palestine (1936), index; A. Bein, Return to the Soil (1952), 67, 79–90, 202, 248–51; S. Dayan, Al Gedot Yarden ve-Kinneret (1959), passim; J. Baratz, Deganyah Alef (1948), 7–12. (Efraim Orni / Shaked Gilboa (2nd ed.)