Inheritance Disputes Threaten the Future of Moshavim

A Nazareth court recently heard a dispute over rights in an agricultural holding in a Galilee moshav, managed for years by the owner’s son and grandchildren. In the 1980s, the owner gifted the holding to one grandson. At his father’s request, that grandson later agreed to relinquish the gift to his elder brother, provided they shared actual use of the holding’s two houses, chicken coop and extensive orchards. Their arrangements were recorded in an internal family agreement signed by the father and sons. About twenty-five years later, following the elder brother’s death, his widow was registered as the designated successor. She denied the family agreement’s validity and sued to evict her brothers-in-law and their families, seeking a declaration that she alone held rights in the holding.
She argued that the agreement did not bind her because only her late husband had signed it.
In September 2019, the court dismissed her claim and accepted the defendants’ position, represented by A. Shiloh & Co. It held that she could not disavow the family agreement under which her late husband and the family had operated for decades. The court held that “the plaintiff is barred and estopped from challenging the validity of these agreements as regards internal family relations, as distinct from relations with the settlement institutions; this finding does not prevent those institutions from applying their policies to the parties.” This alluded to the Supreme Court’s observation in the similar Haim case: recognizing such family agreements may open the way to effectively dividing a holding among numerous rights holders, contrary to the policies of the Israel Land Authority and Jewish Agency.
The judgment highlights a legal reality threatening the next generation in moshavim that appears to have been sidelined and left untreated. The lack of modern property and inheritance solutions for agricultural holdings creates crises in hundreds or thousands of farming families. Those who are not designated successors are excluded from their parents’ assets and left without property or means to buy homes, while one sibling inherits the entire holding, including two houses and permission to build a third, holiday accommodation and business activities.
The background is existing law, which prohibits farmers from dividing their holdings, granting rights to more than one person or leaving the holding to more than one heir. Aging farmers must therefore choose a single descendant to receive all rights, effectively disinheriting their other children.
The crisis intensifies as holdings rise in value thanks to older moshav residents’ labor and investments and increasing Israeli real-estate prices. These properties are worth many millions of shekels and can generate very high regular monthly income. The designated successor becomes newly wealthy through property with no incentive to cultivate it, and more land is farmed by others, contrary to government policy encouraging farmers to preserve agricultural land entrusted to them. Unsurprisingly, many moshav children sue relatives to share their parents’ holdings. These lawsuits tear families apart, cause depression and enormous social harm, while the government fails to respond adequately or effectively to the growing crisis.
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*In summer 2019, A. Shiloh & Co. held a conference for Galilee and northern moshavim, attended by Moshavim Movement Secretary-General Meir Tzur. Participants called for legislative reform and adoption of the late Professor Smadar Ottolenghi’s longstanding recommendations, principally: allow each holding to operate as a “family farm,” so its income can be legally and equally shared among all siblings in a way that prevents future family litigation. In our view, there is no reason to deny moshav residents the right enjoyed by other citizens to leave their property and businesses to their children.