This is a photograph of Kibbutz Ein Hashofet taken in 1938. The photograph shows the construction of a watchtower.
Next to the tower are some tents and in the background a couple of sturdier buildings. This photograph is part of NLI’s Emanuel Harussi Photograph Collection.
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Kibbutz Ein Hashofet and "Tower and Stockade" Building - Kibbutz Ein Hashofet, situated in the north of Israel, was one of the "tower and stockade"settlements built by Zionist settlers between 1936 and 1939. The settlers relied on a Turkish Ottoman law that was still in effect during the British Mandate which stated that illegal buildings could not be demolished if they included a wall and a tower. In order to overcome Mandate laws preventing the construction of Jewish settlements, the settlers arrived in secret, usually during the night, with a prefabricated wall and tower, and the construction would take place within a couple of hours, by which time there was little that the Mandate police could do. These “tower and stockade” settlements became the basis for new kibbutzim or moshavim. In total, 57 settlements were built in this way, including Ein Hashofet, Hanita, Maale Hachamisha, Sde Eliyahu and others.
The objective of these settlements was to establish a Jewish presence on land that had been officially bought by the JNF (or KKL in Hebrew), thus populating Jewish-owned land with Jewish citizens of Palestine and creating an unbroken settled area which would help determine the future borders of the Jewish State.
