RUḤAMAH

RUḤAMAH (Heb. רוּחָמָה), kibbutz in the southern coastal Plain of Israel, 7 mi. (12 km.) E. of Sederot, affiliated with Kibbutz Arẓi ha-Shomer ha-Ẓa'ir. The land for Ruḥamah was acquired in 1913 by the Palestine Land Development Company (PLDC) for a Zionist settlers group in Moscow, She'erit Yisrael, whose members, however, failed to reach Palestine. A workers' group was afterward entrusted with occupying the remote site, then the southernmost Jewish outpost. The workers persevered there until 1917, when the Turks demanded that they evacuate the area toward which the Allied forces under General Allenby were advancing. In 1920 another group of Jewish workers came to work at the site, planting olives, almond trees, and vines. The place was abandoned in the 1929 Arab riots and resettled in 1932, but again given up when the 1936–39 Arab riots broke out. In 1944, when efforts were made to enlarge the Jewish settlement network in the south and the Negev, the present kibbutz, whose founders originated from Romania, settled there. Their primary task was reclamation of the loess soil, where deep desert ravines had created badlands. In the Israeli war of independence (1948), Ruḥamah repeatedly came under attack, first by Arab irregulars, and then by the invading Egyptian Army. The kibbutz held out and, in the later stages of the war, contributed to the final expulsion of the Egyptians in Operation Ten Plagues. In 1970 the kibbutz had 510 inhabitants, dropping to 384 in 2002. Farming was based on field crops, poultry, citrus groves, and dairy cattle (in partnership with kibbutz dorot ). It also had a large brush factory and an electronics plant. The name "Ruḥamah" derives from Hosea 2:3. (Efraim Orni)