Tel-Hai Heritage Center presents the myth encompassing the story of defending Tel-Hai during the 20s, by a group headed by Yossef Trumpeldor, whose last words were “it is good to die for our country”. Today a visitor is exposed, through state-of-art exhibitions, to lifestyle at the old courtyard, agriculture and the famous battle held on Adar 11th, 1920.

Historic Background

On 1914, at the time the First World War has broken, there was only one Jewish community in the ‘northern corner’ (Pinat Hazafon) of Eretz-Israel – Metula (who founded in 1896).

The Sykes-Picot Agreement of May 16, 1916 was a secret understanding between the governments of Britain and France defining their respective spheres of post-World War I influence and control in the Middle-East. According to this Agreement, it was resolved that the Upper Galilee region would remain a French controlled. Therefore, Metula and its surroundings communities were part of the French region.

When the northern region of Eretz-Israel was conquered from the Turkish Empire (1918) there were only two additional spots southern to Metula: The Mountain, on which the Giladi Group established its barracks who later became Kfar Giladi, and Telcha, the Courtyard that was built between the years 1907 and 1908 for the benefit of farmers of Metula, and delivered in 1918, on the eve of the Turkish retreat, to the Tel-Hai Group.

In that time (the year 1918) the connection between northern to southern regions of Israel was renewed.

November 15th, 1919 (Shabbat) marked the turning point in the northern communities’ routine. A mules’ robbery caused the little and humble agricultural community an additional stroke that above all, avoided the farmers from seeding. Lives were hard and the security situation was rickety.

The circumstances went complicated, among the settlers and in their external relations with the Yishuv leadership. They raised this issue in front of Israel Shochat, the founder of the Shomer (in Hebrew- “the Guard” - the first Jewish security organization), who sent its new representative who had arrived from Russia – Yoseph Trumpeldor, to a few days visit in order to study the community claims and prepare a Defense Program.

The annals of Yosef Trumpeldor – who became a myth in his death, initiated years earlier in Europe, and through the far-east and Turkey on his way to Eretz-Israel. Trumpeldor’s motive in arriving Eretz-Israel was to unite the two labor factions in the Yishuv, assuming this was the only way to properly prepare for a massive immigration from Russia, actually to absorb the Jewish community there who was risked with anticipated pogroms.

According to testimonies collected, and following a hazardous journey, Yosef Trumpeldor (a left handed) arrived to Tel-Hai in December 29, 1919, there he was witnessed to an atmosphere a significant lack in food, clothing, equipment, arms and ammunition and above all – a reality of fear from a struggle with Arabs, who rose in January 8th, 1920. 

Yosef Trumpeldor believed the minimum number of troops to defend the area was 200, while the total number of untrained defenders allocated at Kfar Giladi, Tel-Hai and Metula was only 100, compared to heavy French and Arabs troops at the surrounding area, from Metula to the Hula region. Local battles were followed with the ADAR 11th (March 1st 1920) combat, who lasted until night and became the most heroic battle in the annals of the Jewish Yishuv in Eretz Israel. Yosef Trumpeldor and the five defenders who entered the Jewish legacy as the MAGINIM (in Hebrew – defenders) all fell in the battle of Tel-Hai.

Tel-Hai was not only a myth. Yosef Trumpeldor, the five defenders and the Jewish Yishuv in Tel-Hai and the Upper Galilee actually marked the northern border of Eretz-Israel under the British Mandate.