Lavi Forest is named after the Jewish community that flourished during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods on the site where the forest now stands, about half a kilometer to the west of the edge of the community of Givat Avni.
Lubya is mentioned several times in the Talmud as the site of an inn that served travelers en route between Acco and Tiberias. In one instance, it mentions a round of cheese found at the Daluvi Inn (i.e., the Lubya inn), which was declared suitable for eating for two reasons: “because of its presence there and because of the many wayfarers,” i.e., because most of the travelers on that route were Jews, the cheese was likely to be kosher (Shekalim 7b). The name Daluvi Inn is evidence of the fact that Galileans of that time did not distinguish between the sounds “b” and “v”.
To the north of the forest soar the Horns of Hattin, at the foot of which the Muslims, led by Salah al-Din, defeated the Crusaders in the decisive battle of 1187.
An inn known as Khan Lubya was in operation during the Mamluk period (the 13th century CE), and its remains can be seen about a kilometer to the east of Givat Avni, to the south of Route no. 77. Later the area was the site of an Arab village whose name – Lubya – retained the sound of that of the ancient Jewish community. Residents of this village assailed the Jewish pioneers at Sejera from the day of their arrival in 1899. Later, at the beginning of Israel’s War of Independence, Lubya residents harassed Jewish travelers en route to Tiberias, and, in an incident that took place on February 24th, 1948, two members of a passing convoy were killed in an attack by Arabs. The highway was blocked, and Jewish traffic to Tiberias was diverted to routes via Yavniel and the Kinneret.
Lubya proved a hard nut to crack. On June 9th, 1948, when the Dror battalion of the Golani Brigade made an unsuccessful attempt to occupy the village, it lost twenty-one of its soldiers in the ensuing battle. During fighting that lasted for ten days, from July 8th-18th 1948, Fawzi al-Qawuqji’s army attacked Ilaniya (Sejera) unceasingly, but to no avail. The Arabs of Lubya then abandoned their village, and on July 18th it was captured without resistance and the route to Tiberias was opened once more.