Yehiam was founded by a group of the socialist Zionist Hashomer Hatzair youth movement—Holocaust survivors from Hungary and members from Yishuv—who named themselves Kibbutz HaSela (lit.

[dubious – discuss] The UN Partition resolution came almost exactly one year later, on 29 November 1947,[3] placing the kibbutz within the envisaged Arab state, rather than the Jewish one.

[9] On 20 January 1948, 200–300 troops of the Arab Liberation Army's Second Yarmuk Regiment based in Tarshiha attacked Yehi'am, armed with mortars, machine guns and rifles.

A platoon of British soldiers exchanged fire with the Arab regiment, which withdrew and tried to attack again the following night but was repulsed by a reinforcement of Haganah fighters.

During Operation Dekel the Israeli army conquered and forcibly evacuated the Bedouin village of Khirbat Jiddin[dubious – discuss] on 10–11 July 1948.

Hashomer Hatzair groups joined from different parts of Israel, as well as Aliya of that same movement from Cuba, France, Uruguay, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela.

[13] In 1969, Yehi'am established Deli-Yehiam, a kosher meat factory specializing in beef and chicken cold cuts.

In 2006, the company developed a new series of products including pastrami with pistachio, red peppers and olives, which was also marketed at retail chains and kosher delis in France.