Abigail is an
Israeli settlementAn 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...
located adjacent to Ma'on in the
JudeaJudea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...
n Hills of the
West BankThe 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...
. The village receives its municipal services from the
Har Hebron Regional CouncilThe Har Hevron Regional Council is an Israeli regional council in the southern Judean Hills area of Mount Hebron, in the southern West Bank. The headquarters are located adjacent to Otniel. The council was established in 1983...
. Abigail is named after the Biblical
AbigailAbigail was the wife of Nabal; she became a wife of David after Nabal's death .In the passage, Nabal demonstrates ingratitude towards David, and Abigail attempts to placate David in order to stop him taking revenge...
, the wife of
NabalAccording to the 1st Book of Samuel Chapter 25, Nabal , was a rich Calebite who was also described as being harsh and surly. David and his band of men who had been outlawed by King Saul were living off the Wilderness of Paran and providing voluntary protection to the shepherds in the area.The...
, who lived in the original Ma'on.
Abigail was established on
Yom KippurYom Kippur , also known as Day of Atonement, is the holiest and most solemn day of the year for the Jews. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Jews traditionally observe this holy day with a 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue...
eve 2001 by a group of recently-discharged Israel Defence Forces soldiers, near an area where there had been many attempted terror attacks on Israeli civilians.
Immediately after the group moved onto the land, a High Court of Justice ruled a temporary injunction ordering a freeze on all development work on the site until an official ruling could be made regarding the status of the land. After approximately two and a half years, the court's final decision was to allow the building to continue.
Today in Abigail, there are about ten families, some of which operated a local goat farm which provided milk for the dairy in Susiya. In 2008, this farm moved operations to an advanced facility in Susiya.