[1] During the Ottoman era a Muslim village called Ikhneifis (also Khanâfis and other versions), meaning "beetles", stood at the site of present Sarid.

[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.

[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.).

[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.

The kibbutz was established by Jewish immigrants from Czechoslovakia, Poland and Soviet Union in 1926, on lands purchased from the village of Khuneifis.