Located adjacent to the town of Shoham, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hevel Modi'in Regional Council.

[1] The moshav was originally named Ahlama (Hebrew: אחלמה) (Exodus 28:19), after one of the twelve stones in the Hoshen, the sacred breastplate worn by a Jewish high priest.

[2] It was subsequently renamed Beit Arif, which is presumably derived from the Aramaic Byt Ḥrp, with the name of the ancient site being migrated from its original location in the neighboring youth village of Ben Shemen.

In the early 1950s some Jewish refugees from Yemen and Aden arrived in the area, and built homes about half a kilometre away.

After disagreements between the two groups, in 1953 the original residents left and moved to Ginaton (a moshav also founded by Bulgarian-Jewish immigrants).