Kfar Tavor was established in 1901 by pioneers of the First Aliya under the auspices of the Jewish Colonization Association. Twenty-eight farmers settled in the area with the assistance of the philanthropist Baron Edmond de Rothschild. The new settlement was originally known as Mes'ha, the name of the nearby Arab village. It was renamed in 1903 at the urging of Zionist leader Menachem Ussishkin who visited the site and was surprised to find it had no Hebrew name. At first, there was some debate over whether to use the term "kfar" ("village"), which some residents thought would bode badly for future growth. Ussishkin responded that he had visited the German town of Düsseldorf, which had also originated as a "Dorf", or village, but was now a full-fledged city.