Kiryat Tiv'on, Haifa District, Israel

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Kiryat Tiv'on is a town in the Haifa District of Israel, in the hills between the Zvulun and Jezreel valleys. Kiryat Tiv'on is situated 15 km south-east of Haifa, on the main road to Nazareth. Kiryat Tiv'on is the result of the municipal merger of several older settlements, Tiv'on, Elro'i, Kiryat Haroshet and Kiryat Amal. On the outskirts of Tiv'on is a Bedouin township called Basmat Tab'un.

The area was acquired by the Jewish community as part of the Sursock Purchase. In 1925 a Zionist organisation purchased 30 feddans in Kiskis (present Alonim) and Tabon (present Kiryat Tiv'on) from the Sursuk family of Beirut. At the time, there were 36 families living there. In the 1931 census Tabun had a population of 239, still all Muslim, in a total of 48 houses. From 1931, and lasting several years, the Jewish Agency struggled to evict the tenant farmers from Tabaun, from the land which was to become Tivon.

Kiryat Tiv'on was established in 1958 merging three small villages Tiv'on (founded in 1947), Kiryat Amal (founded in 1937) and Elro'i (founded in 1935). Kiryat Haroshet, founded by a rabbi from Jablona, Poland who settled there with his followers in 1935, became part of Kiryat Tiv'on in 1979.

Tiv'on was built on land owned by a British Jewish couple who bought the land in early 1945. It was later developed by the Jewish National Fund based on an urban plan drawn up by Alexander Klein, a Russian Jewish architect who was commissioned by the Jewish National Fund.

The symbol of Kiryat Tiv'on is the cyclamen, a flower that grows between the rocks, reflecting the town's appreciation of nature and its efforts to preserve the landscape and safeguard the environment.

Landmarks The town is best known for the national park, Beit She'arim, which borders it on the southwest. Beit Shearim was an important Jewish spiritual centre and necropolis during the Roman period, and was once the seat of the Sanhedrin.