From its inception, the HaPoel HaMizrachi Federation placed agricultural settlement at the center of its mission. As part of its ongoing struggle with the settlement institutions for the right of its members to establish communities, the moshav of Kfar Yavetz was founded in 1932 within the Tel Mond bloc.
As early as 1929, Zvi Shechterman, a Mizrachi activist who had immigrated to Palestine in 1924, began acquiring land northeast of Tel Mond. The goal was to establish citrus orchards for forty well-resourced Jewish families affiliated with Mizrachi USA, with the intention that they would eventually settle there once the orchards became profitable. Shechterman appealed to HaPoel HaMizrachi to send a group of religious laborers to work the land and, later, to establish a workers’ settlement near the future bourgeois community intended for American Jews. He emphasized his vision of establishing a religiously observant rural community in the area. The initiative, though unexpected, was welcomed and embraced by the movement.
In the winter of 1932, a group of 15 religious laborers - graduates of the HaHalutz HaMizrachi training programs in Poland - was dispatched. At Shechterman’s request, the site was named Givat Chaim, in honor of his teacher and mentor, Rabbi Chaim Tchernowitz (“Rav Tza’ir”). The cornerstone for Givat Chaim was laid on 5 Iyar 5692 (1932). Of the 1,500 dunams purchased by Shechterman, 900 dunams were planted with orchards for the benefit of Jewish families from America, Poland, and Austria.
When the workers’ group expressed a desire to settle permanently and establish their own village, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) agreed to allocate 120 dunams from its holdings for the establishment of smallholdings for 23 families. Due to the settlement’s isolation and proximity to Arab villages such as Tiba and Qalansuwa, the settlers concluded that there was a pressing need to expand the community and absorb more families. In a members’ assembly held in Av 5693 (1933), with representatives from the HaPoel HaMizrachi Executive Committee, it was resolved to establish a moshav ovdim (workers’ village).
HaPoel HaMizrachi initially proposed naming the new settlement Givat HaRim, in honor of Rabbi Yehiel Michel Pines. However, the JNF Names Committee objected, arguing that the name did not clearly indicate a reference to Rabbi Pines. Ultimately, the decision was made to assign that name to a different settlement near Wadi Ara (Kfar Pines), and the moshav in the Sharon region was named Kfar Yavetz, in honor of Rabbi Ze’ev Yavetz, marking ten years since his passing in 1934.
HaPoel HaMizrachi’s strategic vision aligned with that of the Agricultural Center’s settlement projects of the era. The goal was to establish a religious workers’ community adjacent to a planned bourgeois settlement intended for religious Jews from the Diaspora. This ambitious plan involved risks and compromises, especially regarding security, which under normal conditions might have prevented settlement. The rationale was that permanent employment in the Givat Chaim orchards would sustain the settlers of Kfar Yavetz, while during off-seasons or labor shortages, they would rely on subsistence farming. Each household was initially allocated approximately six dunams for this purpose.
Source: Museum Archives for the Documentation of Tel Mond Bloc History; Rina Idan, 1999, “Jewish Settlement in the Central Sharon Region, 1929–1939.” ֿPhD Dissertation, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.