NEḤALIM

NEḤALIM (Heb. נְחָלִים; "streams"), moshav in central Israel, near Lydda (Lod) airport, affiliated with Ha-Po'el ha-Mizrachi moshavim association. Originally founded by veteran farm laborers in 1943 in the Ḥuleh Valley (where its name, referring to the Jordan River headstreams, was chosen), the moshav was largely destroyed in the Israeli War of Independence and the settlers were transferred to the present site on the land of the former German colony, Wilhelma (August 1948). There, the group was joined by settlers from moshav Neveh Ya'akov, north of Jerusalem, which had to be given up in May 1948. Later, new immigrants from Hungary and Poland joined the moshav. The village economy was based on intensive and fully irrigated farming. Neḥalim had 710 inhabitants in 1969, part of them staff and pupils of a yeshivah which was opened in 1958. In the mid-1990s, its population was 1,520, growing further to 1,920 residents in 2002. (Efraim Orni)