Israel
Settlement of Afikim Kibbutz – Jordan Valley – Commissioned Medal Bronze Medal
35mm (14.80 grams) Reference: CM-1 City seal – Hebrew within
Torah shape, candle between.
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Afikim (Hebrew: אֲפִיקִים) is an Israeli kibbutz affiliated with the Kibbutz Movement located in the Jordan Valley three kilometers from the Sea of Galilee. It is within the jurisdiction of the Emek HaYarden Regional Council. In 2019 it had a population of 1,511.
The name Afikim means “riverbeds”, and refers to the Jordan River and its tributary, the Yarmuk River, and is also taken from the Bible, Ezekiel 34:13: “I will pasture them … in the riverbeds.”
Russian Jews affiliated with the Hashomer Hatzair movement organised in 1924 and settled in the area of Wazia in the Upper Galilee. In 1932 the group moved to its current location on a tract of land belonging to Degania Bet, where it absorbed groups from the Poale Zion movement and Hechalutz. Yisrael Hofesh, one of the founders of the kibbutz, who died in 2011 at the age of 107, helped to establish the banana industry and worked in the plywood factory run by the kibbutz.
During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Afikim was subjected to frequent shelling by Syrian and Iraqi forces, and was a stronghold of Palmach activity. Afterwards it was a center for agricultural training for IDF soldiers who planned to join kibbutzim after demobilization. During the split of the Kibbutz Meuhad movement, Afikim, unlike many other kibbutzim, did not split up into two villages. Rather it joined the Mapai-affiliated faction which went on to found the Ihud Kibbutzim. In 1977, Afikim hosted 66 refugees from Vietnam. In 2011, the kibbutz accepted 100 new members.
Afikim grows bananass, date palms, avocados, olives, subtropical flora, and grains. It also engages in aquaculture and dairy farmingAfimilk, a dairy equipment company, and Afikim Electric Vehicles electric vehicless. In the 1980s, Afikim went through an economic crisis
In 2010, Afikim announced its partnership in a half-billion-dollar milk production project in Vietnam. The project involved establishing a dairy operation of 30,000 cows to supply 500,000 liters of milk a day, about 40% of Vietnam’s present milk consumption. Afikim was responsible for all stages of the enterprise, including breeding and preparing land for crops used as feed. In addition to a demonstration farm with 174 cows established for educational purposes, a commercial milk farm with 20,000 cows, the TH Milk facility, was built in stages by 2015. The milk output per cow is 9,300 liters of milk annually despite tropical conditions.
The first electronic milk meter, which measures how many liters of milk a cow has produced, was invented at Afikim. Other inventions include the pedometer, which counts the number of steps a cow takes, indicating the right time for insemination; AfiFarm, a milking and dairy herd management software program; AfiAct, a fertility detection system; and AfiLab, a device that analyses the components of the milk and detects bacteria.
In 2009, Assaf Inbari, a writer who grew up on the kibbutz, published Home Sapir Prize for Literature.
In 2011, Afikim Electric Vehicles’ Breeze-S scooter won Germany’s Red Dot
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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