Dalton
DALTON
DALTON (Heb. דַּלְתּוֹן), moshav in central Upper Galilee, 4 mi. (7 km.) N. of Safed. During most of the Middle Ages, Dalton had a considerable Jewish population and it was believed that the tomb of R. *Yose ha-Gelili was located there. In the Crusader period, *Benjamin of Tudela noted a Jewish community at Dalton. The site has remnants of a synagogue of the talmudic period and numerous ancient rock tombs and prehistoric dolmens in its vicinity. The area of the Muslim-Arab village (Dallāta), abandoned in the 1948 War of Independence, was settled in 1950 by a Ha-Kibbutz ha-Dati group which had previously maintained the settlement of *Biriyyah. In 1953 settlers from Tripolitania set up a moshav affiliated to the Ha-Po'el ha-Mizrachi Moshavim Association. Dalton's economy was largely based on hill farming. In 1968 it had 610 inhabitants. In 2002 its population was 688. Dalton became known for its boutique winery (named after the moshav), producing about 700,000 bottles a year from nearby vineyards.
[Efraim Orni/
Shaked Gilboa (2nd ed.)]