Shimron
Encyclopedia
Shimron was a major city in the north of the Land of Israel, in antiquity. Shimron is mentioned in the bible by this name, and in other period sources as Shim'on. The city is identified with the tell
Tell
A tell or tel, is a type of archaeological mound created by human occupation and abandonment of a geographical site over many centuries. A classic tell looks like a low, truncated cone with a flat top and sloping sides.-Archaeology:A tell is a hill created by different civilizations living and...

 called Tel Samunia in Arabic. The tel rises 60 meters above its surroundings, north-east of 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...

 Nahalal
Nahalal
-External links:** UNESCO* Jewish Agency for Israel*, "Jews made a garden" - aerial photo of Nahalal , and a girl from Girls' Agricultural Training Farm , at Google Books....

, on the border between the Lower Galilee, and the Jezreel Valley
Jezreel Valley
-Etymology:The Jezreel Valley takes its name from the ancient city of Jezreel which was located on a low hill overlooking the southern edge of the valley, though some scholars think that the name of the city originates from the name of the clan which founded it, and whose existence is mentioned in...

. Today the tel in not settled, Timrat
Timrat
Timrat is a communal settlement in northern Israel. Located in the Lower Galilee near Nahalal, it falls under the jurisdiction of Jezreel Valley Regional Council...

 was established alongside, to the east.

History

Shimron was one of the Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

 fortified Canaanite
Canaan
Canaan is a historical region roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan...

 cities that controlled the Jezreel Valley
Jezreel Valley
-Etymology:The Jezreel Valley takes its name from the ancient city of Jezreel which was located on a low hill overlooking the southern edge of the valley, though some scholars think that the name of the city originates from the name of the clan which founded it, and whose existence is mentioned in...

, possibly the largest of them. All of these cities were located at an entrance to the valley, and controlled one of the roads leading into it.

In the Amarna letters
Amarna letters
The Amarna letters are an archive of correspondence on clay tablets, mostly diplomatic, between the Egyptian administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru during the New Kingdom...

 and the Execration texts
Execration Texts
Execration texts, also referred to as Proscription Lists, are ancient Egyptian hieratic texts, listing enemies of the Pharaoh, most often enemies of the Egyptian state or troublesome foreign neighbors. The texts were most often written upon statuettes of bound foreigners, bowls, or blocks of clay...

, the city is referred to as Shim'on. In the bible, it is mentioned as one of the cities that were attacked by Joshua
Joshua
Joshua , is a minor figure in the Torah, being one of the spies for Israel and in few passages as Moses's assistant. He turns to be the central character in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Joshua...

 , and also as belonging to the Tribe of Zebulun
Tribe of Zebulun
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Zebulun was one of the Tribes of Israel....

 .

In the Hellenistic period, there was a large settlement at the foot of the tel, called Shimonia or Samunia. The city was central during First Jewish–Roman War, and in 66 CE a battle occurred here between the Jewish Rebels and the Romans
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

, who besieged the city.

The name of the city occurs also elsewhere (Niddah
Tohorot
Tohorot is the sixth order of the Mishnah . This order deals with the clean/unclean distinction and family purity. This is the longest of the orders in the Mishnah. There are 12 tractates:...

 24b), and in the Middle Ages it is mentioned by Ishtori Haparchi ("Kaftor wa-Feraḥ," ch. xi).

From at least the beginning of the 19th century, a small Arab village called Semunieh was here. In 1875 it was described as a small village on a knoll with three springs, having probably less than 100 inhabitants.

In 1867, a group of German Templers
Templers (religious believers)
Templers are members of the Temple Society , a German Protestant sect with roots in the Pietist movement of the Lutheran Church. The Templers were expelled from the church in 1858 because of their millennial beliefs. Their aim was to realize the apocalyptic visions of the prophets of Israel in the...

 attempted to establish a settlement on the site, which failed due to malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...

.

In 1936, the site became an agricultural training station for the Moshavim Movement
Moshavim Movement
The Moshavim Movement is one of the main settlement movements in Israel, whose members are cooperative villages organized as moshavim and moshavim shitufiim...

. One group that trained here came from Nahalal, and continued on to establish kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...

 Hanita
Hanita
Hanita is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located in the western Galilee approximately 15 kilometres northeast of Nahariya, it falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Asher Regional Council. In 2011 it had a population of 500....

.

In 1948, kibbutz Timorim
Timorim
Timorim is a village in central Israel organized as a moshav shitufi and functioning also as a communal settlement for its community of non-members. Located on the Israeli coastal plain around a kilometer south of the Malakhi Junction, near the town of Kiryat Malakhi, it falls under the...

 was established on the site. Timorim became a moshav shitufi
Moshav shitufi
A Moshav shitufi is a type of cooperative village in Israel whose organizational principles place it between the kibbutz and the moshav on the scale of cooperation...

 in 1953 and moved to the south of the country, due to lack of farming lands. When it was vacated, it became a Ma'abara
Ma'abarot
The Ma'abarot were refugee absorption camps in Israel in the 1950s. The Ma'abarot were meant to provide accommodation for the large influx of Jewish refugees and new Olim arriving to the newly independent State of Israel, replacing the less habitable immigrant camps or tent cities...

 (transit camp) for new immigrants destined for Migdal Ha'Emek and Ramat Yishai
Ramat Yishai
Ramat Yishai is a local council in the North District of Israel, located on the side of the Haifa–Nazareth road about eastern to Kiryat Tivon. It was declared a local council in 1958. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , it had a population of 6,600 in 2010, with a growth rate...

.

Nature reserve

In 1965, a 28-dunam
Dunam
A dunam or dönüm, dunum, donum, dynym, dulum was a non-SI unit of land area used in the Ottoman Empire and representing the amount of land that can be plowed in a day; its value varied from 900–2500 m²...

 nature reserve was declared, preserving the Apple-ring Acacia
Faidherbia albida
Faidherbia albida is a species of Faidherbia native to Africa and the Middle East, formerly widely included in the genus Acacia. It has also been introduced to India and Pakistan. Common names for it include Apple-ring Acacia, Ana Tree and Winter Thorn.It is a thorny tree growing up to 6–30 m tall...

trees that grow on the site. This is the northern-most occurrence of these trees in Israel.
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