Hotel HaGoshrim and the Koren stream
Riva and I spent the first couple of days of a short break at Kibbutz HaGoshrim in the Galilee panhandle. HaGoshrim (“the bridge-builders”) was founded in 1948 by Jewish immigrants, mostly from Turkey. Adjacent to the Hurshat Tal nature reserve, it is riddled with water, including the Snir (Hasbani), Koren (Dan tributary) and Tal tributaries of the Jordan.
The kibbutz was initially established in the abandoned buildings of the former site of the religious moshav, Nechalim, a kilometre to the south-east of the present site. Nechalim had moved there from Menehemia in 1944, but was again moved―after 1948―first to Wilhelma, and then to its current site south of Petach Tikva. HaGoshrim’s cemetery contains a memorial to Nechalim.
The kibbutz is situated on the lands of the former winter palace of the amir (chief) of the Fa‘our branch of the al-Fadl Bedouin tribe―the largest and strongest Bedouin tribe in the Golan―whose territory included large parts of the Golan Heights, part of the Hauran plain, and the eastern Hula Valley. This the amirs ruled, recognized by the Ottomans as the hereditary amir al-ʿarab, from here and from his summer palace at a summer palace (whose ruins still exist) at Wasset, at what is now Ha'emir Junction in the Golan Heights. The last amir, Amir Mahmoudal-Fa‘our ruled from Damascus, as an absentee landlord. The villagers of the former Arab village of al-Khisas―north of the kibbutz across route 99, and just east of the Hasbani river―worked for the amir as tenant farmers.
In the decades from before and during the British Mandate, the amirs of the Fa‘our family were dominant in the area where Syria, Lebanon and Palestine converged. After World War I, the French and British mandatory powers divided control over the al-Fadl tribe's lands in the area, forcing them to adapt to realpolitik on the ground: tribal lands were being divided between territories under different mandates. The political reality meant dealing with conflicting British, French, Syrian, Lebanese, and Zionist aims for the region, and the amir's mounting debt―a result of his inability to collect rents―became a decisive factor in his decision-making.
In 1919 the French burned the amir’s winter palace, when the head of a band of Bedouin thieves fled there, seeking the protection of the amir's nephew. It was rebuilt, but destroyed in 1948, and the kibbutz subsequently built a hotel partially incorporating what remained. The palace included a western and a northern wing and a wall from the east and from the south, forming a square yard. There were two stories decorated with white and black mosaics. Today the remains are in the grounds of the Kibbutz Hagoshrim hotel. Remains include reed decorations, stairs to the second floor and the western door.
The amir's winter palace in 1954 (left) and as part of the Hotel HaGoshrim, 2016 (right) [Source: courtesy Hotel HaGoshrim, Adi Perez, Haaretz]
The ruins of the amir's summer palace at Wasset in the Golan, built from limestone which stands out from the local black basalt stone widely used in the area.
Gardens were laid out on the site, which is surrounded by small streams, picturesque water springs, dense thickets, lawns and sculptures. Water dominates the kibbutz: remains of sugar cane milling installations and their attendant mill races and aqueducts can be seen in the gardens, and a triple flour mill, fed by an aqueduct, can be seen at the western extremity of the kibbutz. In the slideshow which follows, hover cursor for captions.
The fine example of a triple mill (which milled the flour three times) operated until 1948, after which the water supply was used to feed the kibbutz’s fish ponds―now defunct. It was restored in 2017 by the Israel Antiquities Authority after many years of requests. Successive films of the work―produced by Uri Dimand, kibbutz resident from the age of twelve―can be seen below the slideshow which follows (hover cursor for captions).
The indefatigable Uri Dimand also created the Hidden River Park, a path and board walk "carved out" of the dense thicket along the Koren Stream. The park was created in 1990 with the assistance of the Kibbutz Hagoshrim hotel. Almost impassable in places, a walk along the stream is almost like caving in places, as you can see below.
You can see some of the modern kibbutz, which is reliant on agriculture, tourism and industry, in the slideshow below The Epilady device, the first type of epilator, was developed and manufactured here at the Mepro factory, from its invention in 1986. The kibbutz kindergarten has a splendid junkyard playground, after the model created by Malka Haas, Sde Eliyahu’s young kindergarten teacher, in the 1950s, and arguably the learning ground for Israel's creativity and innovation. And many of the graves in the Kibbutz's cemetery are decorated with art, or objects pertaining to the deceased.
Just north of HaGoshrim is the famous Dag al HaDan fish restaurant, literally on, beside and over the Dan stream, where we enjoyed a meal as the sun set.
