[1] Yad HaShmona was founded in 1971 by a small group of Finnish Christians and was named for eight Jewish refugees from Austria who escaped to Finland in 1938.

[3] In 2000, a biblical garden was built at Yad Hashmona in cooperation with the Swiss Beit Shalom Association and the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).

[4] The community runs a guesthouse (Yad Hashmona Country Hotel), convention center and banquet hall.

[6] In 2008, a lesbian couple married in the UK wanted to hold a wedding party for their friends and family at the banquet hall in Yad HaShmona.

The lower court judge ruled in favour of the couple based on a year 2000 law forbidding discrimination in public places.