32°21′N34°55′E / 32.350°N 34.917°E /32.350; 34.917
Hefer Valley עמק חפר وادي حيفر | |
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Regional council (from 1940) | |
 Emek Hefer Regional Council building | |
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 Interactive map of Hefer Valley | |
| District | Central |
| Government | |
| • Head of Municipality | Galit Shaul |
| Area | |
• Total | 127,940dunams (127.94 km2; 49.40 sq mi) |
| Population (2014) | |
• Total | 41,100 |
| • Density | 321/km2 (832/sq mi) |
| Website | Official website |
TheHefer Valley Regional Council (Hebrew:מועצה אזורית עמק חפר,Mo'atza Azorit Emek Hefer) is aregional council in theSharon region of theCentral District ofIsrael. It is named after an administrative district in this area in the time ofKing Solomon (1 Kings 4:10).
The council covers an area adjacent toHadera in the north, toNetanya in the south, to theMediterranean in the west and toTulkarm and theGreen Line in the east. As of December 2020, the jurisdiction area of the council has a population of about 42,600 people.[1]
The Regional Council offices are located nearKfar Monash, at the Ruppin junction, next to theRuppin Academic Center.
In the early 1900s, a local midwife,Olga Hankin, reported information about the economic state of the families in the region to her husband,Yehoshua Hankin, who was in charge of land purchase for theJewish National Fund (JNF). In 1927, Yehoshua Hankin resolved the complex legal issues involved in purchasing the land, and signed an agreement for the purchase of the Hefer Valley. The only difficulty was that the JNF did not have sufficient funds to pay the sum needed for buying the land. The chairman of the JNF,Menachem Ussishkin, set out on a fundraising trip toCanada, returning with $300,000 and undertakings to bring it up to a million, the sum required to purchase the Hefer Valley over a period of seven years. At the 16thZionist Congress held inZurich in 1929, Ussishkin announced that Emek Hefer was now in Jewish hands.
A group of 20 young members of the "Vitkin" and "Haemek" ('the valley') movements settled in the newly purchased valley. They moved into an abandoned building and began draining the swamps and preparing the land for agriculture.
In April 1933, they built their first houses atKfar Vitkin, in the heart of the valley. In 1931, a group from theHashomer Hatzair movement inHadera established the settlement ofEin HaHoresh, planting the first citrus grove.
A company called "Yachin" prepared plantations for settlers from abroad. Another group from the Kibbutz HaMeuhad movement, foundedGivat Haim in 1932, while the organization of demobilized soldiers from theJewish Brigade set up the settlement ofAvihayil.
Ruppin Academic Center was established in the region in 1949.[2]
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