Ein Gedi Art Shelter ~ Kibbutz Magen ~ Luddy Family

The Sponsor: Maureen, David and Noah Luddy

Magen (Hebrew: מָגֵן, lit. Shield) is a kibbutz in southern Israel. Located in the north-western Negev desert and covering 8,500 dunams, it falls under the jurisdiction of Eshkol Regional Council. During World War I, British forces established an air base here after the withdrawal of the Turks.[2] The kibbutz was established by immigrants from Romania on 16 August 1949. The site was on the remains the Maqam (shrine) of Sheikh Nuran, probably the site of the biblical town of Bethul (Joshua 19:4)[3] and a battlefield during Operation Assaf in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Kibbutz Magen is just under 5 kms from the border with the Gaza Strip.

Adapted from Wikipedia

Name of the Community: Kibbutz Magen

About this Art Shelter:

This art shelter is situated in “Zoo Havaya” in Kibbutz Magen. (“Zoo havaya” is a pun – “זו” [zu or zoo] sounds like zoo, but doesn’t mean zoo (means “it” or “this”), so zoo havaya means “it’s an experience” and as a pun can be translated also as “experience zoo”) This originally began as a small children’s zoo, for the children of the kibbutz, to teach them about responsibility and caring for animals. The kibbutz was privatized in 2001 and the petting zoo was transformed into “Zoo Havaya”, with an animal rescue station and many different types of animals, and is now run as a commercial enterprise, bringing children from all around the region and the country.

Adapted from http://www.wzd.cz/zoo/AS/IL/il_hahotrim.htm

The Art Shelter