Avnei Eitan elevation 385 metres (1,263.1 ft) above sea level, is an Israeli settlement

Israeli settlement

An 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...

, moshav

Moshav

Moshav is a type of Israeli town or settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists during the second aliyah...

 on the Golan Heights founded after the 1973 Yom Kippur War

Yom Kippur War

The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria...

 in honor of six Israeli soldiers who had been killed in battle. A prominent landmark in the area is one of the starting points to the El Al Stream, the other being the neighboring moshav of Eli Ad

Eliad, Golan Heights

Eliad is an Israeli settlement and a moshav, located in the southern Golan Heights. It falls under the jurisdiction of Golan Regional Council and in 2006 had a population of 264...

. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights illegal under international law

International law and Israeli settlements

The international community considers the establishment of Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories illegal under international law, but Israel maintains that they are consistent with international law because it does not agree that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the...

, but the Israeli government disputes this.

Community

It is a largely religiously observant

Orthodox Judaism

Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...

 agricultural community located in a region sometimes referred to as the Gush Hispin

Gush Hispin

Gush Hispin is an area in the southern Israeli-occupied Golan Heights consisting of the Israeli settlements and agricultural cooperatives of Hispin, Nov, and Avnei Eitan. The three villages are primarily religiously observant and subscribe to religious Zionism.-See also:* Israeli-occupied...

, or Hispin bloc, of religious communities in the southern Golan Heights. The moshav receives municipal services from the Golan Regional Council

Golan Regional Council

The Golan Regional Council is the regional council consolidating almost all Israeli settlements located on the Golan Heights. It is made up of 19 moshavim and 10 kibbutzim, and other villages...

.

About 80 families live on Avnei Eitan, including 20 families who had been expelled

Israel's unilateral disengagement plan

Israel's unilateral disengagement plan , also known as the "Disengagement plan", "Gaza expulsion plan", and "Hitnatkut", was a proposal by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, adopted by the government on June 6, 2004 and enacted in August 2005, to evict all Israelis from the Gaza Strip and from...

 from Gush Katif

Gush Katif

Gush Katif was a bloc of 17 Israeli settlements in the southern Gaza strip. Gush Katif was specifically mentioned by Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister who fell victim to an assassin in 1995, as essential to Israel's security border. In August 2005, the Israeli army moved the 8,600...

, mainly from the former communities of Netzer Hazani

Netzer Hazani

Netzer Hazani was an Israeli settlement located in the northeast corner of the Gush Katif and evacuated in Israel's disengagement of 2005...

 and Kfar Darom

Kfar Darom

Kfar Darom was a kibbutz and an Israeli settlement within the Gush Katif bloc in the Gaza Strip.-Original kibbutz:Kfar Darom was founded on 250 dunams of land purchased in 1930 by Tuvia Miller for a fruit orchard on the site of an ancient Jewish settlement of the same name mentioned in the Talmud...

. There are two distinct neighborhoods in the moshav; an "old" neighborhood, in which each house also has a substantial plot of land, as well as the "new" neighborhood, built after 2000, which consists of four rows of small identical houses which cater to young families, and another row of larger houses in which the former Gush Katif residents live.

The community is host to the pre-military yeshiva

Yeshiva

Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...

, or mechina

Mechina

A Mechina is an Israeli educational program that prepares high school graduates for serving in the Israeli Army or study at an institution of higher learning in Israel...

, named "Leadership Yeshiva Academy" or commonly referred to as Mechinat Avnei Eitan

Mechinat Avnei Eitan

Mechinat Avnei Eitan , also referred to as Leadership Yeshiva Academy in English, is a pre-military mechina which combines classical Yeshiva learning with the preparation for the service in the Israeli Defence Forces and leadership functions in Jewish communities...

. This particular mechina caters to English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 speaking students from outside of Israel interested in the army.

Rabbi Erez Levi is the rabbi of the community and also rosh yeshiva

Rosh yeshiva

Rosh yeshiva, , , is the title given to the dean of a Talmudical academy . It is made up of the Hebrew words rosh — meaning head, and yeshiva — a school of religious Jewish education...

of the mechinah.