Yad Mordechai

Kibbutz Yad Mordechai was developed by Hashomer Hatzair members from Poland who immigrated to Mandatory Palestine with the aim of founding a kibbutz.  They founded a kibbutz called Mitzpe Yam close to Netanya in 1936.  However, the amount of land allocated to the kibbutz was insufficient, so the community moved to its site in the Western Negev near Ashkelon in December 1943 and was renamed in memory of Mordechai Anielewicz, the leader of the Jewish Fighting Organization during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the largest Jewish resistance movement during the Second World War.  Anielewicz, a member of Hashomer Hatzair, was killed in May 1943, during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Five years later, in May 1948, during Israel’s War of Independence, the kibbutz members faced an existential challenge and fought courageously for six days in an effort to repulse the attempts of the Egyptian army to conquer the kibbutz and to acquire control of the road from Gaza to the country’s central region.  The fierce battles claimed the lives of 18 kibbutz members and eight Palmach fighters.  As a result of their stubborn resistance, the fighters managed to slow the Egyptian army’s advance toward the center and the north of the country, making it possible for IDF forces to halt the Egyptian forces south of Ashdod, at a junction that is still known today as “ad halom,” meaning “no further.”

Yad Mordechai has a museum named, “From Holocaust to Revival,” which deals with the sequence of events experienced by the Jewish People in the Diaspora and in Israel during the first half of the twentieth century. The museum opened its doors in May 1968.  The museum’s ideological design and the planning of the exhibits was undertaken by a team headed by Holocaust survivor, partisan, poet, and thinker Aba Kovner. The Kibbutz produces many food products; growing potatoes, wheat, corn, cotton, chickpeas, peas, peanuts, sorghum, avocado, and citrus fruit.  They raise cattle and produce both dairy products and meat products.  They have the largest apiary in Israel with 5,000 hives which raises bumblebees for pollinating cultivated plants in hothouses.  They also produce honey, jam, olive oil, tomato sauces, and maple syrup. Kibbutz Yad Mordechai is a leader in the kibbutz tourism industry and they offer varied kibbutz tours.