Perched above the Sea of Galilee on the hilly road from Tiberias in northeastern Israel to the coastal city of Haifa directly opposite to the west is Ilaniya, one of the first modern Jewish communities in the Lower Galilee. It played a pivotal role in the settlement of the region over a century ago, and is bringing back its storied past at a time of intense national reflection over identity and belonging sparked by the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

This once fully agricultural and history-rich village—replete with unaltered archaeological relics dating back thousands of years that lay sprawled throughout its winding streets and fields—was where one of Israel’s founding fathers and first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, worked as a farm laborer for months

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