Founding Kibbutz Lavi was founded on the ruins of the Arab village of
Lubya, depopulated during 1948 by the
Haganah militants. Two young children were shot by
Haganah militants in Lubya, before the founding of the State of Israel. The source of the name "Lavi" and "Lubia" is from the ancient Lavi village which existed in the days of the
Mishnah and
Talmud, in which there was an inn called "Lavi", on the way from
Tiberias to
Sepphoris. The kibbutz was founded in 1949 by young religious immigrants from the
United Kingdom, who were from the British branch of
Bnei Akiva, a religious Zionist youth movement. Many of the founders were among the 10,000 Jewish children who were taken to the United Kingdom from Germany as part of the 1938-1940
Kindertransport program following
Kristallnacht. In its early years, the
Bachad movement raised money in the UK for the kibbutz as well as providing agricultural and educational training for
Bnei Akiva and Bachad members in the UK on
Thaxted Farm, Essex. Lavi was the first kibbutz where children lived with their parents, instead of in communal children's quarters where the children of other kibbutzim were housed and fed. Among the founders of the kibbutz was
Yehuda Avner, a British immigrant who became a diplomat and advisor to several Israeli prime ministers. The first couple to be married on the kibbutz, founders Michael and Marion Mittwoch, celebrated the birth of their 100th great-grandchild in January 2015. In the mid-1970s Rabbi
Shlomo Aviner was the Rabbi at Lavi, before he moved on to
Keshet (Israeli_settlement) in the Golan Heights.
Population In 2005, 770 people lived in the kibbutz. Since 2003 a program in Lavi has been open for children at the
Jewish Free School in London, England. The same opportunity was also opened for the
King David School. The group stays in the kibbutz for 9 weeks, while attending the nearby school and touring the country. ==Economy==