Day 10: Kibbutz Yagur to Ein Hod

Mount Carmel is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel and the West Bank, stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast. Its name literally means plantation of high quality trees, roughly equivalent to the garden, in reference to the richly fertile character of the hillside. The range was traditionally known as the vineyards of God, and archaeologists have discovered ancient wine and oil presses at various locations within it. The range is a UNESCO biosphere reserve and a number of towns are located upon it, most notably is the city of Haifa which is Israel's third largest city and is located on the northern slopes.





After passing a few memorials and monuments for Israel's War of Attrition of the late 60s and early 70s, found our way to the artist's colony of Ein Hod and the inviting cabin of Shmueli Hed, our next trail angel. It turned out we got there on the right night because there was a huge party going on at the Dada museum.





Plenty of wine was flowing as Israel's biggest collection of total freaks were on display wearing jester outfits, purple face paint, mullets, cross-dressing, and everything else. Bradley was shocked and horrified but I was just relieved to have a bit of libation to make the pain of the day dissipate. Today was also memorable because we picked up Yonatan, our resident expert hiker.



Ein Hod is a village south of Mount Carmel and southeast of Haifa in northern Israel. It is situated on a hillside amidst olive groves, with a view of the Mediterranean Sea and a twelfth-century Crusader fortress.



Before the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Ein Hod was the site of the Arab village of Ein Hawd. Most of the Arab inhabitants were displaced as a result of the war but some remained in the area and settled nearby. In 1953, Ein Hod became an artists' colony that has remained active until today.

The 700-900 Arab residents of Ein Hawd fled the village before the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, many of them settling in the Jenin refugee camp. A group of 35, members of the Abu al-Hija family, refused to leave. They established a new village, also called Ein Hawd, a little way up the hill. Attempts to dislodge them did not succeed, and they were eventually granted Israeli citizenship. Initially, the new village was not recognized, but in 1988 it joined the Association of Unrecognized Arab Villages in Israel and was recognized by the state in 1992. In 2005, Ein Hawd achieved full recognition, including connection to the Israeli electric grid.



Ein Hod became an artists' colony in 1953. The driving spirit behind the project was Marcel Janco, an acclaimed Dada artist, who kept the village from being demolished by the security forces and convinced the government to let him build an artists' colony there. Janco, born in Bucharest, Romania, was one of the founders of the Dada movement, established in 1916 at Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, Switzerland, by a group of exiled poets, painters and philosophers who were opposed to war, aggression and the changing world culture. In 1922, Janco returned to Romania, where he gained fame as a painter and architect. In 1941, fleeing the Nazis, he moved to Palestine, and was one of the founders of the New Horizons Group (1948). He was awarded the Israel Prize in 1967. The Janco-Dada Museum, which opened in 1983, features Janco's work and explores the history of the Dada movement.

Ein Hod is now a communal settlement of 150 residents run by an elected administrative committee. Many Israeli painters, sculptors and musicians live there, and maintain studios and galleries that are open to the public.

-Jeremy