In 1921, members of the Gdud HaAvoda Work Battalion, at a time when their road work was decreasing, set up a work camp in the Harod Valley, the eastern extension of the Jezreel Valley, at the foot of Mount Gilboa. In 1921, 35 young people from the Gdud pitched tents at the Harod Spring. The group, led by Shlomo Levkovitch (Lavi), began to farm land which the Palestine Land Development Company had purchased from the Arab village of Nuris, in the eastern part of the Jezreel Valley. The Gdud members worked here at draining the swamps, a permanent source of malaria.