Kfar Tapuach – Hebrew for “Village of Apples” – is situated in the beautiful Samarian hills near the archaeological site of the biblical Kfar Tapuach, which appears in the Book of Joshua (Chapter 12) as one of the first 31 cities conquered by Joshua Bin-Nun and the Children of Israel when they entered the Holy Land.
The modern communal settlement of Kfar Tapuach, a 40-minute drive north of Jerusalem, is among 33 communities belonging to the Shomron (Samaria) Regional Council in the heart of the Land of Israel.
Kfar Tapuach, established in 1978 by a core group of Yemenite Jews, has grown to include 175 Jewish families of diverse cultural backgrounds, including immigrants from Russia and the United States as well as Peruvian converts to Judaism. Educational facilities accommodate all ages, including a daycare center, a nursery school, three kindergartens with a playground and a hesder yeshiva, which combines advanced Jewish studies with IDF service.
Kfar Tapuach is also in close proximity to Ariel University, which has attracted many academics to the community.
“For a fairly long time, nine families and two singles held out, coping with bad roads, supply problems, housing in tents and bad weather,” according to the Shomron Liaison Office website.
“Over the last six years, as a result of ‘Project Students’ that supplied dormitories for students of Ariel [University] in preferred conditions, and the decision of the second generation of Tapuach [residents] to stay after getting married, the town doubled in size,” the site explains.
Among the services available is a qualified and experienced volunteer emergency medical and anti-terrorist team.
A number of private businesses have succeeded, including, for example, a grocery store, a perfume factory, a goat farm and a honey-bee farm. Close by, however, is the Barkan Industrial Park, which is located outside the city of Ariel and houses close to 140 factories employing 6,000 Jews and Palestinian Arabs from nearby towns and villages.
The Kfar Tapuach community is located on the “Highway of the Patriarchs,” on which Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had traveled, as well as above of the Tapuach Junction – a main intersection that serves as a transit point to all parts of the country. It is a 15-minute drive from the Jordan Valley, 25 minutes from the popular Highway 6 and 45 minutes from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Author: Atara Beck, Staff Writer, United with Israel
Date: Feb. 10, 2014
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