Beit HaArava: A Kibbutz at the Edge of the Dead Sea

Beit HaArava is a kibbutz in the northern Dead Sea area, in the Jordan Valley between Jericho and the Dead Sea. The kibbutz has been founded, destroyed, abandoned, and rebuilt twice, making it one of the most dramatic stories of pioneering persistence in Israel.

Biblical Arava

The Arava (Arabah) and the area around Beit HaArava appear throughout the Bible as a defining geographical landmark. The Book of Joshua describes the boundaries of the Promised Land using the Arava as a reference point: “The Arabah also, with the Jordan as a border, from Chinnereth as far as the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea” (Joshua 12:3). The “Sea of the Arabah” is the Dead Sea, and the Arava is the rift valley that stretches from the Dead Sea southward to the Gulf of Aqaba.

The crossing of the Jordan into the Promised Land took place in this region. Joshua led the Israelites across the river near Jericho, within sight of the area where Beit HaArava now stands: “The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground” (Joshua 3:17). The prophet Ezekiel’s vision of the river that will flow from the Temple and heal the Dead Sea describes this same landscape: “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh” (Ezekiel 47:8). And in Deuteronomy, Moses looks out from Mount Nebo across the Arava toward Jericho in his final view of the Promised Land: “The Lord showed him the whole land… as far as the western sea, the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar” (Deuteronomy 34:1-3).

The name “Beit HaArava” (House of the Arava) directly connects the modern kibbutz to this biblical landscape. The founders chose the name deliberately: they were building a home in the wilderness that the Bible describes as the boundary of the Promised Land.

First Kibbutz (1939-1948)

The original Beit HaArava was founded in 1939 on the shore of the Dead Sea, in one of the most inhospitable locations in the country. The pioneers developed techniques for desalinating the saline soil and growing crops in the desert, demonstrating that even the Dead Sea region could support agriculture. The kibbutz grew to over 200 members and became a symbol of the Zionist ability to make the desert bloom. During the 1948 war, Beit HaArava was evacuated and destroyed by the Jordanian Arab Legion.

After Israel captured the area in 1967, the kibbutz was refounded in 1980 on a site near the original location. Today, Beit HaArava is a small community that relies on date palm agriculture, tourism, and Dead Sea mineral industries. The surrounding landscape, with its salt flats, date groves, and desert mountains, is stark and beautiful.

Visit with Hoshen Tours

Beit HaArava tells the story of a kibbutz at the edge of the Dead Sea. Hoshen Tours pairs it with Jericho, the Aliyah story at the Aliyah Return Center, the the Jordan border crossings crossings, and the early settlement of Moshava Kinneret.