Ben Shemen


Ben Shemen is a moshav in central Israel. Located around four kilometres east of Lod, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hevel Modi'in Regional Council. In it had a population of.

Etymology

The village's name is taken from Isaiah 5:1;
Let me sing of my well-beloved, a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill.

and also reflects the JNF's planting of olive trees in this area.

History

The moshav was founded in 1905, and was one of the first villages established on Jewish National Fund land; the first Jewish National Fund forest is also located in Ben Shemen.
According to a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, Ben Shemen had a population of 90 Jews. Which had increased in the 1931 census to 353 residents, in 30 houses.
In 1923 it was split in two, with a group of trial farms eventually becoming a separate moshav, Kerem Ben Shemen.
The Ben Shemen Youth Village was established adjacent to the moshav in 1927 and is today a large agricultural boarding school.
During World War II, Ben Shemen was the site of a British search for weapons. Similar searches were a common British response to Jewish opposition to the White Paper of 1939. In 1947 Ben Shemen had a population of 75. The village experienced extensive damage during the early days of the 1948 Arab–Israeli war and had to be reconstructed. Immigrants from Romania joined the moshav in 1952. Some houses were built by Bezalel Academy of Art and Design founder Boris Schatz.

Notable residents