"Jewish" and "non-Jewish" fish in Lake Huleh in the 1930s and 1940s

Before it was drained in the 1950s the Huleh Lake and swamps were an important fishing ground, supplying fish locally and as far south as Haifa. In the late 1940s a controversy arose between Jewish fishermen from the Yesod Hama’ala moshava and Kibbutz Hulata and a Christian Arab notable and his Jewish partner, both from the town of Safed, over the catching and marketing of fish caught in Lake Huleh. The Jewish villages pressured Tnuva. The Jewish produce marketing cooperative to market only ’Jewish’ fish, and thus to exclude the fish caught by the effendi and his partner. Today, after the draining of the Huleh swamps, the only fish caught and marketed from the area are those raised in kibbutz fishponds.