Ben Shemen Youth Village


Ben Shemen Youth Village is a youth village and agricultural boarding school in central Israel. Located near Ben Shemen and Ginaton, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hevel Modi'in Regional Council. In it had a population of.

History

The village was established in 1927 on the land of the Hadid factory by Siegfried Lehman. Its aim was to endow children with a Zionist ethic, teach them to work the land, and install an appreciation of responsibility. The school's first students were from Kaunas in Lithuania.
In 1947, it had a population of roughly 1,000. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the isolated village was under siege by the Arab Legion; eleven youths were killed in one attempt to bring in supplies.
Notable graduates include Shimon Peres, Shulamit Aloni, Moshe Katsav, Dan Ben Amotz, Ze'ev Gur-Arie, Micha Tomkiewicz, Amitai Etzioni, and Haim Saban. Today, it has around 1,000 students, of which 400 live in the village.