Nokdim , lit. Shepherds) is a communal settlement

Communal settlement (Israel)

A community settlement is a type of town in Israel. While in an ordinary town anyone may buy property, in a community settlement the town's residents, who are organized in a cooperative, can veto a sale of a house or a business to an undesirable buyer....

 and Israeli settlement

Israeli settlement

An Israeli settlement is a Jewish civilian community built on land that was captured by Israel from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and is considered occupied territory by the international community. Such settlements currently exist in the West Bank...

 in the West Bank

West Bank

The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...

, located south of Bethlehem

Bethlehem

Bethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...

 in the northern Judean hills. The mixed community of religious and secular

Secular Jewish culture

Secular Jewish culture embraces several related phenomena; above all, it is the international culture of secular communities of Jewish people, but it can also include the cultural contributions of individuals who identify as secular Jews...

 Jews, both native Israelis

Sabra (person)

Sabra is a term used to describe a Jew born in Israeli territory; the term is also usually inclusive of Jews born during the period of the establishment of the state of Israel. The word "sabra" is Arabic and Hebrew. Immigrants to Palestine began using it in the early 1930s, according to the The...

 and immigrants with a population of 1,308 (2009) is within the municipal jurisdiction of the Gush Etzion Regional Council

Gush Etzion Regional Council

The Gush Etzion Regional Council is a regional council in the northern Judean Hills, the northern part of the southern area of the West Bank, administering the settlements in the Gush Etzion region, as well as others nearby...

.

The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law

International law and Israeli settlements

The international community considers the establishment of Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories illegal under international law, but Israel maintains that they are consistent with international law because it does not agree that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the...

, but the Israeli government disputes this.

According to a Peace Now-report of 2006, 30 percent of the land Nokdim is built on, is privately owned, all or most of it by Palestinians. According to Israeli law, settlements on privately owned Palestinian land are illegal.






Nokdim is home to the religious pre-army Mechina Magen Shaul, established in 1996.

History

Nokdim was founded on July 5, 1982 by residents of Tekoa. The settlement was originally named El-David in memory of two residents of Tekoa - Eli Pressman, a new immigrant

Aliyah

Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...

 from France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 who was killed in the 1982 Lebanon War

1982 Lebanon War

The 1982 Lebanon War , , called Operation Peace for Galilee by Israel, and later known in Israel as the Lebanon War and First Lebanon War, began on 6 June 1982, when the Israel Defense Forces invaded southern Lebanon...

, and David Rosenfeld, manager of the tourist site at Herodium

Herodium

Herodium or Herodion is a volcano-like hill with a truncated cone located south of Jerusalem, near the city of Bethlehem in the West Bank. Herod the Great built a fortress and palace on the top of Herodium, and may have been buried there...

 who was murdered in July 1982 by two of his Palestinian

Palestinian people

The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...

employees. The name was rejected by the government naming committee who suggested the name Nokdim, which was accepted by the settlers.

The name is taken from the Bible because of nearby settlement of Tekoa: "...Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tekoa".