Kfar Uria

Kfar Uria
Kfar Uria, 2006 Kfar Uria, 2006
Kfar Uria
Coordinates:
Council	Mateh Yehuda
Region	Shephelah
Affiliation	Moshavim Movement
Founded	1912 (original village) 1944 (first re-establishment) 1949 (second re-establishment)
Population (2012)	855

Kfar Uria (Hebrew: כְּפַר אוּרִיָּה‎, lit. Uriah Village) is a moshav in central Israel. Located near Beit Shemesh in the Shephelah. It falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Yehuda Regional Council. In 2012 it had a population of 855.

History

The village was first established in 1912 on land bought from Białystok Jews, and served as an agricultural training place. Amongst the residents were A. D. Gordon. In the 1929 Palestine riots Arab rioters from Jerusalem attacked Kfar Uria, with some local help, robbed and burned down the village. The inhabitants of the adjacent Arab villages for the most part were on good terms with the village's residents and many treated the moshav's association director, Baruch Yakimovsky, as their mukhtar (village chief). He in tern was on amicable terms with mukhtars in surrounding villages. The farmers of the area, both Jews and Arabs, cooperated and defended each other against raiding nomadic Bedouin.

Six Jewish families who had stayed behind were later smuggled out by the mukhtar of Beit Far via one of the ancient natural tunnels that crisscrosses the area. Yakimovsky managed, with the cooperation of some local mukhtars to work Kfar Uria's land for a few more years and in 1944, the village was rebuilt on the ruins of the original site, around 1.5 km north-west Khirbat Ism Allah, but not on village land.

The new village was attacked on 11 January, 1948, but repelled by a combination of a Palmach force and an armoured British unit. Haganah guards murdered without provocation an Arab peasant couple near the village soon after, in February of that year. A third attempt to settle the area was undertaken in 1949, when a moshav was established on the site. The village name is similar to that of Khirbet Cafarorie, a ruin located south - west of the village, which had a hewn winepress, a mosaic and burial caves.

The village center features an old Khan, which once hosted the agricultural training workers, including A. D. Gordon. The Khan structure remains to this day at the heart of the community, but it requires renovations and therefore closed to visitors.

Between 2009 and 2011 a new neighborhood was built and populated with 69 new houses and families.