Shekef is a 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...

 in south-central Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 southeast of Kiryat Gat and west of Hebron

Hebron

Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...

 and falls under the jurisdiction of Lakhish Regional Council

Lakhish Regional Council

Lakhish Regional Council is a regional council in the South District of Israel. It surrounds the ancient city of Lakhish and the modern city of Kiryat Gat. It was founded in 1955. Today it includes 15 moshavim and one village, as listed below. As of 2008, three new communities are being built in...

. It was founded by the Herut

Herut

Herut was the major right-wing political party in Israel from the 1940s until its formal merger into Likud in 1988, and an adherent of Revisionist Zionism.-History:...

 movement with Betar

Betar

The Betar Movement is a Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir Jabotinsky. It has been traditionally linked to the original Herut and then Likud political parties of Israel, and was closely affiliated with the pre-Israel Revisionist Zionist splinter group...

 and assistance from the Jewish Agency

Jewish Agency for Israel

The Jewish Agency for Israel , also known as the Sochnut or JAFI, served as the organization in charge of immigration and absorption of Jews from the Diaspora into the state of Israel.-History:...

 in 1981 as part of the Star Villages Plan of Ariel Sharon

Ariel Sharon

Ariel Sharon is an Israeli statesman and retired general, who served as Israel’s 11th Prime Minister. He has been in a permanent vegetative state since suffering a stroke on 4 January 2006....

 in an attempt to inhabit the region around the Green Line

Green Line (Israel)

Green Line refers to the demarcation lines set out in the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and its neighbours after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War...

 for the extension of Jewish settlement in the line between Mount Hebron

Mount Hebron

Mount Hebron is a geographic region and geologic formation in the southern West Bank, with its western foothills extending into Israel. The area was in biblical times a center of the Israelite and Hasmonean kingdoms. The region lends its name to the Mount Hebron Regional Council....

. About 500 meters east of the community, beyond the Israeli West Bank barrier

Israeli West Bank barrier

The Israeli West Bank barrier is a separation barrier being constructed by the State of Israel along and within the West Bank. Upon completion, the barrier’s total length will be approximately...

, is the Palestinian village of Beit Awwa

Beit Awwa

Beit Awwa is a Palestinian town in the Hebron Governorate in the southern West Bank, located 22 kilometers west of Hebron and 4 kilometers west of Dura. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Beit Awwa had a population of 8,064 inhabitants in 2007...

.

Its population as of 2006 is 300 residents. The moshav is located with a view in the border between the mountain and the desert and is found in a natural reserve. The moshav is surrounded by a natural forest and wildflowers. The moshav grows mainly grapes for eating and vegetables in greenhouses agriculture.

In 2006, a caravan village was founded within the moshav as a temporary settlement mainly for evacuees from Tel Katifa

Tel Katifa

Tel Katifa , was a small Israeli settlement located in the northeast end of the Gush Katif settlement bloc of the Gaza Strip, and evacuated in Israel's disengagement of 2005. The settlement was named after the adjacent archeological site from the Canaanite period. The Palestinian village of Deir...

 who lived in 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...

 in the Gaza Strip

Gaza Strip

thumb|Gaza city skylineThe Gaza Strip lies on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Strip borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the south, east and north. It is about long, and between 6 and 12 kilometres wide, with a total area of...

 until disengagement

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...

 in 2005. The mixed community of religious

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...

and non-religious families are slated to receive land nearby on which a new village called "Mirsham" will be built.

The name "Shakaf" is taken from the older village Umm al-Shakaf, located near the current moshav.