TEKUMAH

TEKUMAH (Heb. תְּקוּמָה; "Resurrection"), moshav in Israel's western Negev, 3 mi. (5 km.) N.W. of Netivot, affiliated with the Moshav Association of Ha-Po'el ha-Mizrachi. Tekumah was founded on Oct. 6, 1946, by survivors of the holocaust in Poland and Hungary, on a site 5 mi. (8 km.) further south, as one of the 11 settlements established in the same night in the South and the Negev. In 1949, the moshav moved to its present locality while the former site was taken over by moshav Sharsheret ("Chain"), also affiliated with Ha-Po'el ha-Mizrachi and composed of newcomers from Tunisia. In 1970 Tekumah had 248 inhabitants (including families from Romania) and Sharsheret 545; by the mid-1990s, Tekumah's inhabitants numbered 343, while Sharsheret's population dropped to 248, and at the end of 2002 the population of Sharsheret was 283 and Tekumah's 421. Farming in both settlements was partly irrigated and in Tekumah it included vegetables, flowers, citrus groves, sheep, and poultry, while Sharsheret's farming was based on honey production, vegetables, flowers, and citrus. One of the main pumping stations of the yarkon-negev water pipeline was located nearby. Both moshavim had begun to expand and absorb newcomers. (Efraim Orni / Shaked Gilboa (2nd ed.)