Before the people of Kfar Hess arrived at the site, the members had joined an “organization” whose original purpose was to establish a settlement in the Jezreel Valley. The members were drawn to the soil of the valley, and so they named themselves the “Yizrael Organization.”
For seven full years, members of the organization worked in the Jezreel Valley and the Galilee, holding on to the hope of settling there. But that vision was never realized.
Then a new voice arose in our camp: “The Thousand Settlements” initiative (its purpose was to establish workers’ settlements, half consisting of day laborers and half of agricultural homesteads). The Yizrael Organization became one of the designated groups for this initiative.
And so the first people of Kfar Hess arrived in this region, with the Tel Mond enterprise serving as their support for wage labor, and the nearby land owned by the Jewish National Fund hinting at the promise of future settlement. The organization initially numbered eighty families. The “Thousand Settlements Company” agreed to include our members in its initiatives, but not as an entire group - only as individuals. As a result, the company selected 26 families out of the original 80 and built 26 houses for them on the land of Hess, planting seven dunams of citrus groves for each family.
This was a disappointment to all of us, but our spirits did not fall.
And so we worked as day laborers, and after work - in the evenings, on Sabbaths and holidays - we built our farms.
From: “Our Sharon Plain – Tel Mond Region,” published by the Hefer Valley Regional Council, 1972.