Ma'agan Michael

Did You Know?

• The founding group owned a fishing boat even before settling on the coast.
• Muki Betser founded a pre-military program (mechina) in the kibbutz called Mechinat Minsharim Kalu.
• Over 25% of the kibbutz members are graduates of its ulpan (intensive Hebrew course).

History

The area was previously known as Kabara, or Zor al-Zarqa, and was regarded by the Mandate government as mawat (uninhabited/uncultivated) under the Ottoman Land Code of 1858. A government concession was leased to the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association in 1921. Throughout the Mandate, British authorities and PICA attempted to settle with the local population and remove them. The PICA drained the Kabbara marshes in the 1920s with money from Baron Rothschild and labor of Jewish pioneers and local Bedouin residents, but the Arab population remained until the end of the Mandate. The area was depopulated of its Arab residents during the 1948 Palestine war, except for the 'Arab al-Ghawarneh tribe. In 1949–51 three new Jewish villages were established, with Ma'agan Michael being the first. The founding group first joined together in 1942, most members coming from the Hebrew Scouts. They trained in a temporary Jewish Agency camp in Pardes Hanna, learning to manage citrus groves, cows, sheep, and chickens. The group was joined by younger immigrants from Germany and Austria (Youth Aliyah) who trained at Ein Gev. The group stayed in Pardess Hanna until the end of World War II, while some members served as emissaries, joined the Jewish Brigade, the Palmach, worked in other kibbutzim, at the Dead Sea Works, or in the newly established Military Industries.

Geography

The kibbutz lies 30 km south of Haifa and 70 km north of Tel Aviv, near the Mediterranean Sea west of Mount Carmel, south of Ma'ayan Zvi and north of the Taninim Stream. It is north of the Arab village Jisr az-Zarqa. The original site was a windswept, treeless sandstone hill, with some land reclaimed from Kabarra swamp. The Nahal Taninim nature reserve, south of the kibbutz, contains a restored Roman dam and aqueduct.

Economy

Ma'agan Michael's agricultural endeavors include field crops and orchards on 1,600 dunams of the Kabarra. Fodder is grown for dairy cows; cotton has been the main crop for many years. Avocado orchards in Tantura cover 1,000 dunams, mostly exported to Europe. The kibbutz produces 1,200 tons of bananas per year for the local market, and grows papaya and other exotic fruits in 40 dunams of greenhouses. Over 80 types of fruit trees are in Abraham's Orchard on Mount Carmel. Poultry production reaches 2,000 tons per year using free-range intensive breeding; the chick hatchery produces about 4.5 million day-old chicks annually. The dairy herd of about 300 cows and 200 calves produces over 3.2 million liters of milk per year. MADAN, the aquaculture branch, operates about 1,600 dunams of fishponds raising carp, gray mullet, St. Peter's fish, and silver carp, plus intensive concrete ponds for striped bass, Musar, and Lavrak, selling over 1,000 tons of edible fish per year. The kibbutz also raises seafish and decorative fish like Koi and goldfish. Plasson, the kibbutz's plastics factory founded in 1963, is the main source of income and employment, with annual sales of about $100 million, 85% exported. The main factory employs over 400 workers, half of them kibbutz members, with about 200 more in subsidiaries worldwide. Plasson produces polyethylene pipe-fittings, poultry drinker systems, and toilet-flushing systems. It owns six marketing companies abroad and holds full or part ownership of six production companies in Israel and abroad. In 1997, 20% of Plasson was floated on the Tel Aviv stockmarket as Plasson Industries, Inc. In April 2000, the Swiss company George Fischer acquired 20%.