Rosh Pinna

Rosh Pina or Rosh Pinna is a town (local council) of approximately 2,800 people located in the Upper Galilee on the eastern slopes of Mount Kna'an in the Northern District of Israel. The town with the current name was founded in 1882 by thirty families who immigrated from Romania, making it one of the oldest Zionist settlements in Israel. It was preceded at the same location by the settlement of Gei Oni ("Valley of My Strength"), established by local Jews from Safed in 1878, which had been however almost fully abandoned by 1882.

In 2005, Rosh Pinna had a population of 2,400.

Geography

Rosh Pina is located north of the Sea of Galilee, on the eastern slopes of Mount Kna'an, approximately 2 km (1 mi) east of the city of Safed, 420 m (1,378 ft) above sea level, latitude north 32° 58', longitude east 35° 31'. North of Rosh Pina is Lake Hula, which was a swamp area drained in the 1950s.

History

Rosh Pina (Hebrew: ראש פנה‎, lit. Cornerstone, alternate spelling: Rosh Pinna) was one of the first modern Jewish agricultural settlements in history of the Land of Israel, then part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Rosh Pina was established near the Arab village of al-Ja'una. In 1883, it became the first Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel to come under the patronage of the Baron Edmond James de Rothschild.