Pardes Hanna-Karkur is a town in the Haifa District

Haifa District

Haifa District is an administrative district surrounding the city of Haifa, Israel. The district is one of six administrative districts of Israel, and its capital is Haifa...

 of Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

. In 2009, it had a population of 31,800.

History

In 1913, 15 square kilometers of land was purchased by the Hachsharat Hayishuv society from Arabs in Jenin

Jenin

Jenin is the largest town in the Northern West Bank, and the third largest city overall. It serves as the administrative center of the Jenin Governorate and is a major agricultural center for the surrounding towns. In 2007, the city had a population of 120,004 not including the adjacent refugee...

 and Haifa

Haifa

Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...

 for 400,000 francs (a sum equivalent to 2 million US dollars). Two years later, the land was sold to a private investor, Yitzhak Shlezinger, the Odessa Committee

Odessa Committee

The Odessa Committee, officially known as the Society for the Support of Jewish Farmers and Artisans in Syria and Palestine, was a charitable, pre-Zionist organization in the Russian Empire, which supported emigration to the Biblical Land of Israel, then Ottoman Syria.The pogroms of 1881-1884 and...

 and the First London Ahuza society. This land became the core of Karkur, Moshav Gan Hashomron

Gan HaShomron

Gan HaShomron is a moshav located north-east of Hadera , on the road to Afula, Highway 65. It is named for its location on at the foot of the Shomron mountains. It was established in the spring of 1934 by Jewish immigrants from Germany who trained as farmers in Nahalal and Ein Shemer...

 and Kibbutz Ein Shemer

Ein Shemer

Ein Shemer is a kibbutz in Israel in the Shomron region, surrounded by citrus groves, orchards and fields. It is located just south of Route 65, about 6 km northeast of Hadera, and is in the Menashe Regional Council. The kibbutz was founded in 1927. The kibbutz makes a living from agriculture and...

. Until actual settlement began, the area was guarded by Hashomer

Hashomer

Hashomer was a Jewish defense organization in Palestine founded out of Bar-Giora in April 1909. It ceased to operate after the founding of the Haganah in 1920. The purpose of Hashomer was to provide guard services for Jewish settlements in the Yishuv, freeing Jewish communities from dependence...

, which planted eucalyptus trees to circumvent a Turkish law that allowed the Ottomans to expropriate lands if they were not cultivated for three years.

The early settlements did not fare well. Shlezinger went bankrupt and sold his land to the Jewish National Fund

Jewish National Fund

The Jewish National Fund was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Palestine for Jewish settlement. The JNF is a quasi-governmental, non-profit organisation...

. The London Ahuza society hoped to settle English Jews on the land, but succeeded only partially. Eventually the Jewish National Fund and the London Ahuza society joined forces to establish Karkur.

Pardes Hanna (lit. "Hanna's orchard", also "Pardes Chana") was founded in 1929 by Palestine Jewish Colonisation Association and named after Hannah Rothschild, daughter of Nathan Mayer Rothschild

Nathan Mayer Rothschild

Nathan Mayer, Freiherr von Rothschild , known as Nathan Mayer Rothschild, was a London financier and one of the founders of the international Rothschild family banking dynasty...

.

On 6 April 1948, the Irgun

Irgun

The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...

 raided the British Army camp at Pardes Hanna killing seven British soldiers and stealing a large quantity of weapons.

After Israeli independence, Neve Efraim was founded by Jewish immigrants from Yemen and Neve Oved was established by the Labor movement. In the 1950s, the villages Tel Shalom and Neve Efraim were merged with Pardes Hanna.

Pardes Hanna and Karkur merged in 1969.

Demographics

According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics

Israel Central Bureau of Statistics

The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , abbreviated CBS, is an Israeli government office established in 1949 to carry out research and publish statistical data on all aspects of Israeli life, including population, society, economy, industry, education and physical infrastructure.It is headed by a...

, the population of Pardes Hanna-Karkur was 31,800 at end of 2009. The land area is 22,596 dunam

Dunam

A dunam or dönüm, dunum, donum, dynym, dulum was a non-SI unit of land area used in the Ottoman Empire and representing the amount of land that can be plowed in a day; its value varied from 900–2500 m²...

s (~22.6 km²). Pardes-Hanna is governed by the largest local council in Israel by population size (among towns without municipal status).

Education

The oldest and largest school in Pardes Hanna-Karkur is the Pardes Hanna Agricultural High School

Pardes Hanna Agricultural High School

Pardes Hanna Agricultural High School established in 1935 by the Palestine Farmers Association, is one of the oldest agricultural high school in Israel...

. It was established in 1934 by the Association of Farmers and was the first agricultural school to include a full academic matriculation program as part of its curriculum. It is the only high-school in Israel that offers a veterinary track. Pardes Hanna-Karkur has six non-religious elementary schools, including a Democratic school, and four religious elementary schools. A religious high-school for boys, Midrashiat Noam, was once considered the flagship of religious-Zionist education. Its graduates include former ministers Yitzhak Peretz

Yitzhak Peretz (politician born 1938)

Rabbi Yitzhak Haim Peretz is a former Israeli politician who held several ministerial portfolios during the 1980s and early 1990s.-Biography:...

, Benny Elon and Ya'akov Ne'eman; journalists Haim Zisowitz, Yair Sheleg and Adam Baruch

Adam Baruch

Baruch Meir Rosenblum , better known by the pen name Adam Baruch, was an Israeli journalist, newspaper editor, writer and art critic.-Biography:...

; and Labor Party Secretary-General Eitan Cabel. A religious high school for girls, Elisheva, is also located in Pardes Hanna.

Transportation

Pardes Hanna-Karkur is served by the Caesarea-Pardes Hanna Railway Station

Caesarea-Pardes Hanna Railway Station

Caesarea-Pardes Hanna Railway Station is an Israel Railways passenger station between the local council Pardes Hanna-Karkur and Caesarea's industrial zone, and serves these towns, their large industrial zones, as well as Or Akiva and other small communities in the area.- Location :The station is...

 and by buses run by Egged and Nateev Express. It is connected to Highway 4

Highway 4 (Israel)

Highway 4 is an Israeli highway that runs along Israel's entire coastal plain of the Mediterranean Sea, its route in the north runs from the Rosh HaNikra border crossing with Lebanon until the Erez Border Crossing with the Gaza Strip...

 by Road 651, to Highway 65

Highway 65 (Israel)

Highway 65 is a major highway in northern Israel. It connects Hadera with the Galilee.This road is the shortest and simplest way to connect these two major regions. Historically, people traveled on or near this route for thousands of years from the coastal plain to reach the Galilee, and beyond...

 by Roads 650 and 652, and to Highway 70

Highway 70 (Israel)

Highway 70 is a highway in the coastal plain and Western Galilee in northern Israel. It connects the region of Zikhron Ya'akov to the Lower Galilee and to Kiryat Ata and Shlomi near Israel's border with Lebanon.-Description of the route:...

 by road 652.

Notable residents

• Gal Fridman
  Gal Fridman
  Gal Fridman is an Israeli windsurfer and Olympic gold medalist.He was born in Karkur, Israel, and lives in nearby kibbutz Sdot Yam.Fridman won a bronze medal in the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics, and a gold medal in the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics...
  
  , Olympic gold-medal-winning windsurfer