The town is named after the old city of Migdala Nunia (Aramaic: "fish tower"), home town of Mary of Magdala (Luke 8:2), and is situated just west of the Kinneret on Tiberias-Rosh Pina road.
In 1908, a small group of German Catholics who identified the site as the birth place of Mary Magdalene settled there. They left after a year and the land was bought by Russia Zionists who founded a farm, Ahuzat Moskva (Moscow Estate) in 1910. This settlement was adjacent to the Arab village Al-Majdal . A few years later, the land was sold to private investors. An encampment of Gdud HaAvoda workers who built the Tiberias-Rosh Pina road was established there in
