Israel
Hannukah - 50th Anniversary of Deganya - Oldest
Kibbutz
1960 Copper-Nickel Lira 32mm (14.20 grams)
Reference: KM# 28 | Engraver: Miriam Karoli,
Rothschild, Lippman
اسرائيل, Stylized inscription.
Degania on the shore of the Sea of Galilee with
its small houses, cypresses and palms, "Degania"
in enlarged Hebrew characters to the left,
Hebrew inscription "Jubilee of Collective
Settlement" around the upper border.
Coin Notes:
The second of the Hanukka commemorative coins is
dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the
collective settlement Degania: "Mother of the
co-operative villages". The coin also
commemorates the jubilee of Israel's collective
agricultural movement. You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
 Degania Alef (Hebrew: דְּגַנְיָה א') is a kibbutz in northern Israel. The Jewish communal settlement (kvutza) started off in 1910, making it the earliest socialist Zionist farming commune in the Land of Israel. Its status as "the mother of all kibbutzim" is sometimes contested based on a later distinction made between the smaller kvutza, applying to Degania in its beginnings, and the larger kibbutz.
It falls under the jurisdiction of the Emek HaYarden Regional Council. Degania Alef and its neighbor Degania Bet both lie between the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River. As of 2019 it had a population of 528.
Degania means "cornflower" and is derived from דגן dagán, meaning "grain". After the first phase at Umm Junieh, the group and its settlement was simply called Degania, Alef being added only after the establishment of the associated kibbutzim of Degania Bet and Gimel in 1920. Alef, bet and gimel are the first letters of the Hebrew alphabet and carry the numerical values 1, 2 and 3.
According to the 1881 Survey of Western Palestine, Umm Junieh was possibly the place called Union, or Homonœa, by Josephus (Vita, 54).
Ottoman period
Umm Junieh village
The Muslim village called Umm Junieh is mentioned during the Late Ottoman period (late 19th century) at the site from which the first Jewish settlers would start establishing their community in 1909–1910. A map from Napoleon's invasion of 1799 by Pierre Jacotin showed the place as ruined. Umm Junieh was just by the ancient bridge known in Arabic as Jisr es-Sidd, which was also noted as ruined by Jacotin.
In 1875, Victor Guérin observed the village of Oumm Djouneh, sitting on a hill east of the river Jordan. In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described the place, cited as Umm Junieh, as a stone and adobe village, on the east side of the river Jordan, on the top of the eastern bank of the river. It contained about 250 Muslim inhabitants. All the plain around was arable soil; no trees. A mill was worked at the village. A population list from about 1887 showed that Umm Juny had about 330 inhabitants, all Muslim.
Beginnings
At Umm Juni
Degania (later Degania Alef) was the first kvutza-type agricultural settlement established by Zionist pioneers of the New Yishuv under Ottoman rule. The location was south-west of the Sea of Galilee, at a place known in Arabic as Umm Junieh or Umm Juni, within the administrative Ottoman area of Acre Sanjak. It was founded in 1910 by a group of eight men and a one woman, the " conquest group", followed at the end of the same year by what would become the permanent settlers group (ten men and two women).
At permanent location
In June 1912, the group moved from the mud huts and wooden shack of Umm Juni to the new stone-built compound at its permanent location. That is at the place where the Jordan River emerges from the Sea of Galilee and therefore had the Arabic name Bab al-Tumm, "Gate of the Mouth".
Prominent early members
The poetess Rachel Bluwstein, the "prophet of labor" A. D. Gordon, and paramilitary commander and leading Zionist Joseph Trumpeldor all worked at Degania Alef. Zionist pioneer and future Israeli politician Yosef Baratz was among the founders of Degania Alef. On June 5, 1912, he married and started the first family. His first child, Gideon Baratz (1913–1988), who was born in Degania Alef, was the first child born in a Jewish collective community in Palestine. ] The second child to be born in Degania Alef was the prominent Israeli general and politician Moshe Dayan. Dayan was named after Moshe Barsky, a member of Degania Alef who was the first kibbutz member killed in an Arab attack. Barsky was killed in November 1913. He was alone in the kibbutz fields when he was shot in the back and left for dead by Arab marauders.
British mandate
In 1920 two new kibbutzim, Degania Bet and Degania Gimel, were established to the south of what consequently became Degania Alef or Aleph.
By 1947 Degania Alef had a population of 380.
On May 20, 1948, during the Battles of the Kinarot Valley, in one of the first battles of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the residents of Degania Alef and Bet, assisted by a small number of military personnel, repelled a Syrian attack and succeeded in halting the advance of the Syrian army into the Jordan Valley. During the attack Degania Alef was completely destroyed by the Syrian army. According to a 1949 book by the Jewish National Fund, the village was destroyed following attacks on the neighboring kibbutzim of Sha'ar HaGolan and Masada. The settlers resisted, however, and launched a counter-attack which helped to recover the neighboring settlements. Reconstruction started almost immediately.
In 2007, Degania Alef moved to undergo privatisation. Instead of assigned jobs and equal pay under the former communal economy, the reorganisation requires members to find employment, live on their income, and allows them to own their homes, but still offers a form of a social "safety net" supplement for members whose livelihood is inadequate to meet their expenses. This move to privatisation was chronicled in Yitzhak Rubin's 2008 documentary, Degania: The First Kibbutz Fights Its Last Battle.
In 1981, Kvutza Degania Alef was awarded the Israel Prize, for its special contribution to society and the State in social pioneering.
- Rachel Bluwstein (a.k.a. "Rachel the Poetess"; 1890–1931), national poet
- Moshe Dayan (1915–1981), military man and politician; second child born here
- A. D. Gordon (1856–1922), Zionist ideologist (the "prophet of labor") and pioneer
- Joseph Trumpeldor (1880–1920), Zionist leader, army officer
- Yosef Baratz (1890–1968), one of the founders; Zionist activist and Israeli politician
 Israel (/ˈɪzriəl, ˈɪzreɪəl/; Hebrew: יִשְׂרָאֵל; Arabic: إِسْرَائِيل), officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Middle East, on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. It has land borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan on the east, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the east and west, respectively, and Egypt to the southwest. The country contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel's economic and technological center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, although the state's sovereignty over Jerusalem has only partial recognition.
 Israel has evidence of the earliest migration of hominids out of Africa. Canaanite tribes are archaeologically attested since the Middle Bronze Age, while the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah emerged during the Iron Age. The Neo-Assyrian Empire destroyed Israel around 720 BCE. Judah was later conquered by the Babylonian, Persian and Hellenistic empires and had existed as Jewish autonomous provinces. The successful Maccabean Revolt led to an independent Hasmonean kingdom by 110 BCE, which in 63 BCE however became a client state of the Roman Republic that subsequently installed the Herodian dynasty in 37 BCE, and in 6 CE created the Roman province of Judea. Judea lasted as a Roman province until the failed Jewish revolts resulted in widespread destruction, expulsion of Jewish population and the renaming of the region from Iudaea to Syria Palaestina.[34] Jewish presence in the region has persisted to a certain extent over the centuries. In the 7th century the Levant was taken from the Byzantine Empire by the Arabs and remained in Muslim control until the First Crusade of 1099, followed by the Ayyubid conquest of 1187. The Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt extended its control over the Levant in the 13th century until its defeat by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. During the 19th century, national awakening among Jews led to the establishment of the Zionist movement in the diaspora followed by waves of immigration to Ottoman and later British Palestine.  In 1947, the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan for Palestine recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states and an internationalized Jerusalem. The plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency, and rejected by Arab leaders. The following year, the Jewish Agency declared the independence of the State of Israel, and the subsequent 1948 Arab-Israeli War saw Israel's establishment over most of the former Mandate territory, while the West Bank and Gaza were held by neighboring Arab states. Israel has since fought several wars with Arab countries, and it has since 1967 occupied territories including the West Bank, Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip (still considered occupied after 2005 disengagement, although some legal experts dispute this claim).[41][42][43][fn 4] It extended its laws to the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank. Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories is the world's longest military occupation in modern times.[fn 4][49] Efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have not resulted in a final peace agreement. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have been signed.
In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a Jewish and democratic state. Israel is a representative democracy[neutrality is disputed] with a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage. The prime minister is head of government and the Knesset is the legislature. Israel is a developed country and an OECD member, with the 32nd-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product as of 2017. The country benefits from a highly skilled workforce and is among the most educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentages of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree. Israel has the highest standard of living in the Middle East, and has one of the highest life expectancies in the world.
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