synagogue is described as being in ruins. Laurence Oliphant also visited Meron sometime in the latter half of the 19th century. His guide there was a Sephardic rabbi who owned the land that made up the Jewish quarter of the village. Oliphant writes that the rabbi had brought 6 Jewish families from Morocco to till the land, and that they and another 12 Muslim families made up the whole of the village's population at the time. Karl Baedeker described it as a small village that appeared quite old with a Muslim population. By the late 19th century, Meron was a small village of 50 people who cultivated olives. British Mandate of Palestine Towards the end of World War I, the ruins of the Meron synagogue were acquired by the "Fund for the Redemption of Historical Sites" (Qeren le-Geulat Meqomot Histori'im), a Jewish society headed by David Yellin. In 1931, Meron consisted of an Arab and Jewish quarter, with the former being the larger one and the latter being built around the tomb of bar Yochai. That year, there were 259 Arabs and 31 Jews. Sami Hadawi's 1945 survey, conducted toward the end of the British Mandate in Palestine, depicted an entirely Arab population. Meron had a boy's elementary school. Agriculture and livestock was the dominant economic sectors of the village, with grain being the primary crop, followed by fruits. Around 200 dunams of land were planted with olive trees, and there were two presses in the village used to process olives. 1948 War The Arab inhabitants of Meron, then known as Meiron, were driven out or fled during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. State of Israel Meron was founded as a moshav by the Hapoel HaMizrachi movement in 1949 next to the site of ancient Meiron by eastern European Jews who fought in the 1948 war. Politicians Yehuda Leib Maimon and Dov Yosef attended the moshav's establishment ceremony, which took place on Lag BaOmer in 1949. 2006 Lebanon–Israel War On July 14, 2006, a Katyusha rocket fired from Lebanon exploded in Meron, claiming 2 lives—Yehudit Itzkovich, 57, and her 7-year-old grandson Omer Pesachov—and injuring four others. A new barrage of rockets hit Moshav Meron on July 15; there were no injuries. Tomb of Shimon Bar Yochai Meron is most famous for the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a second-century rabbi, who contributed greatly to the Mishna, is often quoted in