The Tower and Stockade at Gan Hashlosha National Park

The Tower and Stockade at Gan Hashlosha is an exact replica of the stockade and tower settlement erected at Tel Amal, the modern-day Kibbutz Nir David, and this can be visited within the context of a visit to Gan Hashlosha.

 

This settlement was built overnight by pioneers who had been living in Kibbutz Beit Alpha. It was the first tower and stockade settlement erected in Israel and was built in December 1936 in response to Arab riots. It measured only 35 x 35 meter and was surrounded by a double wooden defense wall. Gravel was placed between the two walls to prevent the penetration of bullets. You can wander through the rooms, which include living quarters with furniture appropriate for the time and a communal dining room.

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The Tower and Stockade (Homa u-Migdal, חומה ומגדל) settlements were one of the most ingenious settlement initiatives of the Jewish community (Yishuv) in Mandatory Palestine. Between 1936 and 1939 during the Arab Revolt, more than 50 new Jewish settlements were established using this procedure; although some sources count additional settlements and give a total of 57 settlements.

 

There were two reasons for establishing this type of stockades. The Arab Revolt that began in 1936 made isolated Jewish agricultural settlements particularly vulnerable to attack. A new settlement needed to be capable of defending itself from its very first night. The solution was to create a compact fortified compound consisting of a stockade of wooden walls, usually strengthened with gravel or earth, surrounding a central watchtower. The tower provided a commanding observation point and allowed communication with neighboring settlements.

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The Yishuv also wanted to establish settlements on land that had been acquired, particularly in areas where Jewish settlement was sparse. Simply owning land was not enough: establishing a permanent Jewish presence could strengthen a chain of settlements and influence the eventual territorial boundaries of a future Jewish state. This became particularly urgent while the Peel Commission of 1937 was considering partition of the country.

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Thus, Homa u-Migdal was both defensive and strategic. The settlements protected their inhabitants, but their location also helped create a network of Jewish settlement in areas such as the Beit She'an Valley, Jezreel Valley, Galilee, Jordan Valley and along the northern frontier.

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Why were they erected so quickly—and at night?  The answer lies partly in the complicated relationship with the British authorities. The Mandatory government restricted the establishment of new Jewish settlements, and obtaining permission for a new settlement could be difficult or impossible. The Yishuv therefore developed a method of creating a settlement so rapidly that the authorities would be faced with an already established and defensible settlement before they could intervene.

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There was also an important legal loophole inherited from Ottoman law. An old Ottoman regulation was interpreted to mean that once a building had been erected and covered by a roof, it could not simply be demolished by the authorities. The strategy was therefore to arrive at a site with all the necessary materials and transform an empty piece of land into a functioning settlement extremely rapidly.

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The night-time aspect needs qualification. The popular image is of hundreds of pioneers secretly arriving after dark and constructing the entire settlement before dawn. This certainly happened in some cases, and night operations were especially useful for avoiding interference and surprise attacks. But not every Tower and Stockade settlement was constructed overnight. In some cases, the main construction took place during the day, with the critical point being that the settlement was established extremely rapidly—often within a single day. It also meant that the settlers were defended their first night by the structure they had built during the day.

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Prefabrication was the key to the whole idea. Conventional construction would have required weeks or months: foundations, carpentry, walls, roofs, doors, windows, and other elements would have had to be built on the site. That would have made the settlement vulnerable to both Arab attack and British intervention.

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Instead, the components were built beforehand at an existing Jewish settlement where there was time and equipment to prepare them properly. They were then loaded onto trucks, transported to the new location and assembled with remarkable speed. The stockade panels, tower, huts and other components were therefore essentially a settlement in kit form.

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The construction was highly organized. Materials—including wooden sections, fencing, gravel, huts, a tower, tools, generators and supplies—could be assembled at a nearby kibbutz or other settlement. On the appointed day, a convoy of trucks and hundreds of volunteers moved to the new site. The stockade could then be erected rapidly, the tower raised, buildings assembled and defensive positions established.

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This also explains why the settlements had such a standardized appearance. The method was essentially an early form of mass-produced, modular architecture, adapted to a military and pioneering purpose.

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The basic arrangement consisted of: a rectangular wooden stockade, often reinforced with gravel or earth; a central or prominent watchtower, providing observation and defense; several prefabricated wooden huts for the initial settlers; living quarters, a dining room, kitchen and other basic facilities; a perimeter designed to keep the settlers and livestock within a defensible enclosure.

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The central tower was particularly important psychologically as well as militarily. It announced from a distance that a permanent Jewish settlement had been established.

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The British attitude toward the Tower and Stockade (Homa u-Migdal) settlements was complicated and changed according to circumstances. They were technically unauthorized in many cases, because the Mandate authorities imposed restrictions on the establishment of new Jewish settlements. Yet the British generally did not dismantle them, and during the Arab Revolt they sometimes viewed them as useful defensive positions.

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There were several reasons for this relatively tolerant approach:

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• Security: From the British perspective, Jewish settlements that could defend themselves were useful in an area experiencing widespread Arab rebellion. The new settlements could serve as defensive points and help stabilize strategically important areas.

• The Ottoman legal loophole.

• Speed of construction: By the time British officials became aware of a new settlement, the tower, stockade and basic buildings were often already in place and occupied. Removing an established, defended community would have been considerably more difficult than preventing construction in the first place.

• Political considerations: The British were attempting to suppress the Arab Revolt while simultaneously managing increasing conflict between the Jewish and Arab communities. They therefore had an incentive not to provoke the Yishuv unnecessarily, particularly when the settlements were providing their own defense.

 

It would consequently be misleading to say that the British officially approved the Tower and Stockade campaign. Rather, the Yishuv exploited a combination of legal ambiguity, speed, security considerations, and British reluctance to use force. The campaign was in fact conceived partly as a response to British restrictions on new Jewish settlement. The result was a remarkable situation in which 52 new settlements were established despite the restrictions.

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One important point for understanding the period is that British policy toward Jewish settlement was becoming increasingly restrictive. The 1937 Peel Commission's partition proposal and, especially, the 1939 White Paper fundamentally altered the political context. The Tower and Stockade settlements therefore belong to a relatively brief period in which the Yishuv could exploit British security needs and legal limitations to create new facts on the ground.

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it is worth noting that the Tower and Stockade strategy was particularly important in the Beit She'an and Jezreel valleys, where establishing a chain of Jewish settlements had both agricultural and strategic significance.

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The first and perhaps best place to understand the concept is here at Tel Amal, today Kibbutz Nir David, in the Beit She'an Valley. Its pioneers developed the system in 1936, with Shlomo Gur among those credited with the idea. The concept was subsequently adopted by the Haganah and became a systematic settlement strategy.

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The importance of Homa u-Migdal goes far beyond the individual settlements. It represented a transformation in Zionist settlement thinking. Earlier agricultural settlements were primarily concerned with creating viable farming communities. The Tower and Stockade settlements added a powerful strategic and territorial dimension: settlement itself became a means of defending land, connecting isolated Jewish communities and influencing the geography of the future state.

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This is why the movement is so important for understanding the geography of modern Israel. Many of the settlements established in this way survived and developed into substantial kibbutzim and moshavim. The combination of agriculture + defense + rapid construction + territorial strategy made Tower and Stockade one of the most distinctive innovations of the Yishuv period.

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Hours in which the stockade is open are from Sunday to Thursday and Saturday from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM; Friday hours vary or require prior arrangement. This available with the general admission to Gan Hashlosha.

 

Beneath the stockade is a viewing area for watching a movie about a group of young people involved in setting up the stockade. It is Hebrew with English subtitles. This needs prior arrangement within the context of a tour.