Alon Shvut from the West. Note the blue roofs of the twin synagogues in the "New Neighborhood."

Gush Etzion Regional Council emblem: The "Lone Oak"

Alon Shvut (Hebrew אלון שבות) is an Israeli settlement in Judea (southern West Bank), located south of Jerusalem, between the biblical cities of Bethlehem and Hebron. It serves as a regional center for the communities of Gush Etzion. Hebrew (עִבְרִית ‘Ivrit) is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Jewish communities around the world. ... Map of Israeli settlements, in navy blue, in the West Bank Israeli settlements are communities built for Israeli Jewish settlers in areas that it captured during the 1967 Six-Day War. ... Desert hills in southern Judea, looking east from the town of Arad Judea or Judaea (יהודה Praise, Standard Hebrew , Tiberian Hebrew ) (Greek: Ιουδαία) is a term used for the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel (Hebrew: ארץ ישראל Eretz Yisrael), an area now divided between Israel and the West Bank, and... Jerusalem (; Hebrew: Yerushalayim; Arabic: al-Quds; Greek Ιεροσόλυμα) is an ancient Middle Eastern city on the watershed between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea at an elevation of 650-840 meters. ... The Church of the Nativity, a Bethlehem Landmark Bethlehem (Arabic بيت لحم (help· info) house of meat; Standard Hebrew בית לחם house of bread, Bet léḥem / Bet láḥem; Tiberian Hebrew Bêṯ léḥem / Bêṯ lāḥem) (Greek: Βηθλεέμ) is a city in the West Bank under Palestinian Authority considered a central hub of... Hebron (Arabic al-ḪalÄ«l; Hebrew , Standard Hebrew Ḥevron, Tiberian Hebrew Ḥeḇrôn: derived from the word friend) is a town in the Southern Judea region of the West Bank, in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. ... Gush Etzion (Hebrew גוש עציון, literally bloc of the tree) is a group of Israeli settlements in the northern Judea region of the West Bank. ...

Naming

Alon Shvut means "oak of return," and is a reference to the return of those Jews expelled from Gush Etzion by the Jordanian Arab Legion in 1948. After the destruction of the Etzion Bloc of communities, the survivors and their children would gather yearly on the Israeli-Jordanian frontier to glimpse the sole remaining tree [1], an oak, which became known as the 'lone oak.' The town was constructed adjacent to the 'lone oak,' and the tree maintains a central place in the identity of both Alon Shvut and Gush Etzion at large as a symbol of renewal and continuity. The 'lone oak' is incorporated in the emblem of the Gush Etzion Regional Council. The Kfar Etzion massacre was an atrocity committed by Arab armed forces on May 13, 1948, the day before the declaration of independence of the state of Israel. ... The Arab Legion (Al-jaish Al-arabi) was Transjordans and later on also Jordans regular army. ...

History

Alon Shvut was founded in 1970 as a neighborhood for housing families associated with a nascent Hesder Yeshiva named Yeshivat Har Etzion. It was uniquely developed as a communal and service nucleus to what was then a mostly agricultural region, and for many years it housed the only clinic, grocery, post office, and bank in the area. Despite the more recent rise of Efrat as an urban center, Alon Shvut still maintains a measure of its former role, and has shared much of Gush Etzion's population increase. As of 2005, the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics reports that Alon Shvut is home to over 650 families. 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ... Hesder (in Hebrew:regulation) or Yeshivat Hesder is a yeshiva which combines high religious studies with a shortened military service. ... Yeshiva or yeshivah (Hebrew: ישיבה pl. ... Yeshivat Har Etzion Yeshivat Har Etzion, commonly known as The Gush, is a Hesder Yeshiva located in Alon Shevut, a settlement in Gush Etzion near Jerusalem, Israel. ... Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (הלשכה המרכזית לסטטיסטיקה) is a state organization for the creation and maintenance of numeric data related to populations vis-à-vis the ethnic makeup of Israel and its cities. ...

Much of Alon Shvut's growth has been tied to the presence of the Yeshivat Har Etzion. In addition to the families of faculty, many of its students have made their homes in the town, and the opening of the Herzog College for Teachers and the Zomet Institute for technologic-religious research, as well as a local educational complex, have drawn many more academics and their families. Some families of returnees from the pre-1948 community have sought Alon Shvut as an alternative to communal living on an area kibbutz. Kibbutz Dan, near Qiryat Shemona, in the Upper Galilee, 1990s A kibbutz (Hebrew: קיבוץ; plural: kibbutzim: קיבוצים, gathering or together) is an Israeli collective community. ...

In 2000, a second neighborhood doubled the size of the town to accommodate an increased demand for housing. Among the new residents were those who had been unable to acquire lots in the original neigborhood[2], as well as many young families that had come on aliyah (moved to Israel from abroad), especially from the United States. A third neighborhood is planned for the Givat HaChish (גבעת החי"ש) area northeast of the town. In the meantime, a provisional cluster of mobile homes populated mostly by recent immigrants from Peru exists on the site. Aliyah (Hebrew: עלייה; ascent or going up) is a term widely used to mean Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel (and since its establishment in 1948, the State of Israel). ...

Archeological evidence of Jewish settlement from circa 300 BCE has been found in the Givat HaChish area, as well as later Byzantine era remains including a mosaic floor. Alon Shvut sits on the ancient road to Jerusalem, which is still marked by Roman milestones. Many ritual baths which would have been used by pilgrims on the way to the Temple in Jerusalem scatter the surrounding hills due to the location's proximity of about a day's travel. There are also dozens of ancient grape and olive presses, as well as cisterns hewn out of the bedrock, which testify to a long history of agriculture. City motto: Senatus Populusque Romanus – SPQR (The Senate and the People of Rome) Founded 21 April 753 BC (mythical), early 1st millennium BC (archaeological) Region Latium Area  - City Proper  1285 km² Population  - City (2004)  - Metropolitan  - Density (city proper) 2,553,873 almost 4,300,000 1. ... Mikvah (or mikveh) (Hebrew: מִקְוָה; Tiberian Miqwāh, Standard Hebrew Miqva) (plural, mikvaot) is a ritual bath used for immersion in a purification ceremony within Judaism. ... The Temple in Jerusalem or the Holy Temple (Hebrew: בית המקדש, transliterated Bet HaMikdash) was built in ancient Jerusalem in c. ...

Geography

Located in the northern Judean Hills at about 950 m above sea-level, Alon Shvut experiences a cool, dry climate in much of summer, and its winters are generally mild with rainfall and a few inches of snow common to most years. The old and new neighborhoods are contiguous and lie on a northwest-southeast axis along the ridge of a hill, with a gradual plain descending to its south, and dramatic gullies dropping to its north. The Givat HaChish neighborhood is on an extension of the ridge which abuts a gully to the northeast of the town. The town is located a few hundred meters west of the Gush Etzion Junction, which is the meeting of Highway 60, the north-south artery which roughly follows the watershed from Jerusalem to Beersheba, and Road 367, which descends into the Elah Valley to the coastal and Tel Aviv area. Soroka Hospital, Beersheba Beersheba or Beer-sheva (Hebrew: (help· info), Standard Hebrew Bəʼer Šévaʻ, Tiberian Hebrew Bəʼer Šéḇaʻ or בְּאֶר שָׁבַע Bəʼer Šāḇaʻ; Arabic بِئْرْ اَلْسَبْعْ (help· info)) is a city in Israel. ... Valley of Elah - terebinth or oak - Where the Israelites were encamped when David killed Goliath. ... Tel-Aviv was founded on empty dunes north of the existing city of Jaffa. ...

Travel time to Jerusalem on the Tunnels Highway is approximately 20 minutes, while Tel Aviv is around 45 minutes away.

External Links

• Gush Etzion Regional Council
• Har Etzion Yeshiva
• Zomet Institute
• Herzog College for Teachers (Hebrew only)