During the Ottoman era a Muslim village called Ikhneifis (also Khanâfis and other versions), meaning "beetles", stood at the site of present Sarid.[2] Kneffis, and the neighbouring towns and villages of Nazareth, Mejdal, Yafa, Jebatha and Ma'alul, paid taxes to the monks of Nazareth, who bought the right to collect these taxes from the Ottoman authorities in 1777 for two hundred dollars.[citation needed] Thirty years later, they again purchased this right, though this time for two thousands five hundred dollars, owing to the rise in the price of cereals and ground rents.[3] A map from Napoleon's invasion of 1799 by Pierre Jacotin showed the place, named as Karm Ennefiiceh.[4]
In 1838, Ukhneifis or Khuneifis was noted as a village in the Nazareth District.[5][6]
In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) found at Ikhneifis the "ruin of a tower built by Daher el-Omar about a century ago (1162 A.H.)."[7]
A population list from about 1887 showed that Ikhneifis had about 40 Muslim inhabitants.[8]Gottlieb Schumacher, as part of surveying for the construction of the Jezreel Valley railway, noted in 1900 that Ikhneifis was a “flourishing village”, consisting of 52 huts and 230 inhabitants, and that the place was the property of the Sursocks, of Beirut.[9]
Moshe Dayan mentioned it as an example of "there is not one place built in this country which did not have a former Arab population".[10]
In the 1950s the kibbutz established Camel Grinding Wheels (CGW), which now has three plants for the manufacture of cutting discs, grinding wheels and coated abrasives.[18] One of the more profitable branches was the kibbutz dairy.[19]
