ḤEREV LE-ET

ḤEREV LE-ET (Heb. חֶרֶב לְאֵת), moshav in central Israel, in the Ḥefer Plain, affiliated with Ha-Iḥud ha-Ḥakla'i, founded in 1947 by veterans of the British and Czechoslovak forces in World War II. In the first years of Israel's statehood, new immigrants from European and North African countries joined the settlement. Citrus groves, poultry, flowers, orchards were the moshav's main farm branches. In 1969, its population numbered 239, rising to approximately 360 in the mid-1990s and 721 in 2002 after expansion. The moshav had both religious and secular residents. Ḥerev le-Et, meaning "Sword into Plowshare" (Isa. 2:4), refers to the fact that demobilized soldiers became farmers. (Efraim Orni / Shaked Gilboa (2nd ed.)