Pre-Zionist Palestine in the Media: Jewish Farms in Palestine
Image Source: Library of Congress
This week’s article is a long one, pulled from the October 1, 1911 issue, pages 29-34, of Al Nafais Al Asriyyah, which was considered one of the most important literary and political magazines in Palestine while it was under Ottoman and British rule. Quite frankly, this article kicked my ass. There were names of people, places, and groups I couldn’t find a trace of, and the language wasn’t as down-to-earth as I like. For example, in the table, a couple of the “founders” were listed as اليوم لروتشيلد and I have no idea what that means. So I just listed it as “Rothschild family.” Nonetheless it was a fascinating article. If you have any comments or clarifications, please don’t hesitate to share them!
Some Farms of Palestine’s Jews
(1860-1900)
Needless to say what a lofty, well-fortified place Palestine has been for previous generations, and within its vast expanse dwells a great many Israelites. These holy lands are still their unshakeable refuge and the only stopping place of their travelers, so they are coming in as crowds, individuals, and couples fleeing from opposition against them in the North and West. This movement has long caught the attention of the nation and has become, by necessity, an issue of concern, with opinions on the matter from beginning to end. It’s no wonder that many Arab newspapers, among others, have been concerned and have sharpened their writing skills. This matter is important and refusing to examine it will cause us to regret it when it’s too late. I didn’t mean to criticize Zaid and his supporters or disdain Omar’s claims or standing up for his ideas; rather, I wanted to point out the reality on the ground as a warning of the approaching danger. The Israelites wherever they have settled and resided and whenever they traveled and roamed, were still eager to gaze upon the Promised Land where Jacob, Abraham, and Isaac dwelled. They paid pure gold and silver to own it, whatever the variety of hardships and torments cost, so how would it be possible to reverse these efforts of theirs with a despondent loser’s handshake? What a wonderful fate and desire, if the intention was for the good of the country and benefited the people. And that’s enough of a reminder for a nation not to be perplexed by the ins and outs of the matter but to try and see through the current events. When we spoke about some farms of Palestine’s Jews, we felt the need to make some introductions.
It's well known that the Israelite people today are leading the people who follow in their fathers’ and forefathers’ footsteps, devoted to the traditional specialties they’ve held since long ago in the lands of Canaan. These descendants avoided diverging [from their traditions] by preserving their social mores, beliefs, practices, and customs—exalting their antecedents. And so they continued, not changing even in things they needed to regarding changing living conditions and prevailing modern refinement according to Europeans, who have different clothing and customs. What distinguishes these people is their intent to pursue their livelihoods and their speedy efforts to obtain it. Now you would hardly see someone who isn’t skilled in manufacturing methods, business techniques, and farming fundamentals. It’s our right to ascertain the money at the Israelites’ disposal, which they spend however profit prompts them.
Fifty or so years ago, the Jews of Palestine took note of farming, and they made up their minds to pursue and practice it for them to know for certain that it’s a determining factor of wealth and a way to live a comfortable, affluent life. Therefore, they designated lush parts of their Palestinian colonies for this purpose as follows, and a majority of what they tend is grapevine seedlings to make wine from them, aside from growing fruit trees and tending to grains. A few of them were concerned with harvesting honey, using hand mills and oil filtering tools, filtering rosewater, catching fish, and other typical farming things. The Eyun Kara Colony—located on Gaza Hashem Road—was well known for its various wines. No doubt that these wines are similar to Europe’s wines with their professional process and satisfying taste, and some might be superior to the European wines in terms of health benefits. As for their businesses in Jerusalem, they are limited to the likes of manufacturing, trade, breeding goats and cows, and some lowly occupations. They preferred exchanging money above all others, considering their piercing intellect and penetrating gaze that few could rival.
What caught the attention and occupied the minds of Palestine’s Jews is an agricultural school in Beit Yisrael close to Jaffa Street leading into Jerusalem. This establishment is “more or less an expansive garden lush with trees and crops, reaching up to approximately 240 hectares,[1] that was founded by Charles Netter in 1870 as an agricultural school that would train roughly sixty Jewish men in agriculture” (Al-Mashreq 2:1089. Excerpted from Issues 4 & 5 of Aliktisad’s first edition, where we had a lengthy article on Syrian agriculture, particularly Page 132 of Issue 5). Though the benefits of this agricultural school are not extended to people other than the Israelites, as all their charity projects usually are.
After this comprehensive introduction, let’s mention the most important Jewish farms in Palestine—cited from Al-Mashreq and the Greek magazine The New Zion, among others—with some modifications and substitutions to indicate their founders and year of establishment as well as each of their acreage in hectares and location to share the benefits and comprehensively cover this topic. This research was based on the information about the Jewish colonies in Palestine, and we felt the need to indicate their number. Here are their names:
The Jerusalem Colony
The Jaffa Colony and its quarters
The Haifa Colony and its outskirts
The Safad Colony and Belad Bechara
The Hauran Colony and Transjordan
(Cited from The Grace, Year 2. Excerpted from a longy essay on Palestinian associations)
It’s quite evident that Jews have influential farms in Hauran and Transjordan. Their acreage exceeds 21,000 hectares, 12,000 of which is near the village Ash-Sheikh Sa’d and was bought by the Parisian Palestine Commission in 1892, and 9,000 of which is near Damascus at the foot of Mount Hermon. They also have vast farms at the foot of Mount Tabor in the Marj Ibn Amer Valley, whose acreage is more than 2,000 hectares. As for the Galileans’ Society, founded in Safad in 1891, it bought approximately 2,000 hectares in Meron (west of Safad), Kafr Sabt (between Nazareth and Tiberias), and Za’eem (near Safad). In addition to those, they have throughout Palestine lush orchards, and we’ll specifically mention the wealthy and famous Sir Moses Montefiore’s orchard located northeast of Jaffa on Nablus Road.
From this information, it can be concluded that the Jews in Palestine have more than 40,000 hectares on which grapevines and fruit trees are planted and various grains are harvested. Altogether these farms of theirs yielded numerous resources and accumulated riches of the echoing void; this is the secret to their material lives. The resolve of political Zionism, founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897, is firm. It’s likely that Palestine is becoming a large colony fit for the Spanish Jews (Sephardic Jews) and the Ashkenazi Jews from every part of the world—they are reuniting, and Palestine’s sacred lands are becoming overcrowded with them.
- Najib Mikhail Sa’ati al-Qudsi (PhD in Theology)
[1] A hectare equals 100 ares and an are is 100 square meters. Each hectare equals 100 x 100 = 10,000 square meters
Jewish Media
There are a great many fascinating articles that are related to Al-Qudsi’s article, but as this blog article is already very long, I’ll just give a brief description of the article and anything of note. I highly recommend you follow links to read them in their entirety if they interest you because you won’t be disappointed.
The Canadian Jewish Times
In 1906, Zionists were searching for financial support and stability (Page 8) for the colonization project: “A syndicate, which consists of some of the most prominent European bankers, has been organized for the purpose of developing Palestine as an industrial center.” About a month later, the Zionist leadership stated (Page 8) that “the programme of the Zionists is, and remains, Palestine and the neighboring lands. Alternatives are not to be considered. There can, therefore, be no question of a ‘rapproachment’ of programmes with the Itoists. In fact, we Zionists have no occasion for it.” This is different from what we’ve seen in previous posts, where prominent Zionists sort of ‘shopped around’ for different locations for Jewish colonies.
In 1907, they reviewed an article written by Professor Otto Warburg (Page 3) that dispelled “any doubt as to the suitability of Palestine for colonization,” where the fertility and desirability of Palestinian land was extolled, along with the success of Jewish agricultural colonists there already. Do you think it’s a coincidence that there was an article discussing the causes of anti-Jewish prejudice right above this one? Food for thought.
In 1909, Mr. Hermann Landau promoted “a new scheme for the salvation of the Jews.” However, this colonization scheme (title of the article not my own naming) didn’t involve buying farmland in just Palestine but also Poland, Russia, Romania, the United States, Canada, England, and other parts of the world. So this directly contradicts the Zionist sentiment in that 1906 article where Palestine and its neighboring lands were the only goal. The true challenge of Mr. Landau’s scheme was raising enough money; and here entered the prominent Zionists for the cause.
Despite critique that the Rothschild family has been unfairly subjected to racist conspiracy theories, well, it seems like the Rothschilds did have fingers in a lot of pies. Mr. Landau’s views certainly don’t detract from conspiracy “evidence”:
One thing only is required to bring this scheme the success I anticipate, which is that Lord Rothschild, who is the most influential Jew living, and who has been not inappropriately called the King of the Jews, should place himself at the head of the concern, and select his colleagues or co-directors from among the most influential persons in various countries. These, in their turn, will, no doubt, appoint a committee of management, and salaried officers possessing the required technical knowledge.
In 1911 (the same year as Al-Qudsi’s article), an article entitled “English and Colonial Zionism” (Page 8), the lack of Zionist enthusiasm among English Jews was lamented, but there was hope for Zionism among American and Canadian Jews apparently. Buying large tracts of land to farm and establish a colony in Palestine was met with enthusiasm in Canada, at least. A few months later, a paper on Jewish activities in Palestine during 1910 (Page 6) was read during the 14th convention of the Federation of American Zionists, extolling Jews’ success in Palestine. They were very proud of their accomplishments: “The Arabs and the European Christians were astonished at the remarkable achievement of the Jews, and their envy is real.”
In 1912, they published an article on Hebrew philosopher Achad Ha’am (Page 2), who opposed Herzl’s ideas and “made bitter enemies of the Zionists.” He thought that “settling Palestine with people who go there to improve their own economic condition will not solve the Jewish problem as a whole.” He believed that Jews should gather in different parts of the world; he wanted to see Hebrew culture advance and the Jewish way of thinking upheld but felt it couldn’t be done in exile under oppression. He viewed Palestine as the cultural center and then other friendly places where Jews could make their home to solve their economic problem. He specifically mentioned America: “To America or to Palestine? This question has been asked by very many of our people. The best answer is: to both! The economic problem of the Jews should look for its solution in America, while the cultural problem, the creation of a centre . . . should find it in Palestine.”
Jewish News of Northern California (Emanu-El, Jewish Community Bulletin)
In 1897, the editor wrote a scathing essay about Jewish colonization and its overlap with agricultural settlements. Even though they were were quite critical, the essay was entertaining. My favorite quote: “We notice with considerable satisfaction that this pretentious colonization society finds no supporters among the rightminded.” Though in 1909, they published an article on Jewish immigrants as farmers, and it wasn’t as scathing as the editor’s 1897 essay.
A few months after the editor’s 1897 essay, the bulletin reported on Jewish colonies in Palestine in its “Foregn News.” In years following 1897, financial troubles persist for Jewish colonies, and the bulletin points out one cause: “The colonists were formerly traders or artisans, and were inexperienced in their new occupation and had no one to advise them. There were errors in selecting and cultivating the soil, and there was despondency in consequence. Charitable gifts from outside improved the position, and now 22 villages, with an area of about 92,000 acres, have been established and are flourishing.”
The Hebrew Standard
In 1901, they reprinted a NY Tribune report on the conditions of Jews around the world (Page 2), including those in Palestine, with the subtitle “Zionism will not Solve the Jewish Problem.” The writer claimed that the land in Palestine was going to waste, the Jews who lived there had the lowest economic status, and the Arab Jews are in “a precarious state.” They didn’t forget to give their opinion on Zionism, which was not that high apparently: “Intoxicated by their sudden political emancipation and rapid material and social advancement, a goodly number of Jews soon lost their moral moorings, cast their national and religious history to the winds, and played the repulsive part of upstarts. Slumbering religious and racial animosities were soon aroused, finding their expression in anti-Semitism.”
In 1907, here is where the aforementioned Professor Warburg’s article was published, entitled “Zionism and Palestinean Agriculture.” This article clearly shows the Zionist plans and intentions for Palestine, and how farming could be essential to achieving them:
“If we do not succeed in creating a strong Jewish peasant class in Palestine, then all hopes of even an approximately autonomous home in Palestine must be given up.”
“If the rural population is Arabic, and not Jewish, the Jewish advantage, till then possibly existing, would soon be wiped out. The principle that the future of a country belongs to the stock which inhabits the flat land has been demonstrated by too many historic examples to be now disputed.”
“In the world of diplomacy the land-occupying population far outweighs in importance the inhabitants of the cities (and this not for military reasons alone), who are much more inclined to moving about.”
Prof. Warburg went into great detail about how the National Fund is legally structured and the financial maneuvers it made to achieve Zionist goals.
The Reform Advocate
In 1896, the article “Another Jewish Colony” (Page 13) detailed Baron Edmond de Rothschild’s efforts to establish another Jewish colony in Palestine. As you can see from the other articles (Jewish press and the translated one above), the Rothschilds funded a great many colonies and other Zionist causes. And again the wording doesn’t really help mitigate the conspiracy theory issue: “Baron Edmond de Rothschild, the father of the Jewish colonies of Palestine, has added another pearl to the setting of the crown of charity in establishing another colony to those already existing.” Martin Meyer wrote an entire article on the “Rothschild Colonies in Palestine” (Page 12) in 1902. Another article on Rothschild’s colonies in Palestine was published in 1904 (Page 2).
In 1897, the editor wrote an article (Page 3), which proposed that Zionism will only succeed in rousing synagogues to oppose it, and “[Zionist] organization justifies anti-Semitism.” They continued on to say, “They reason that as the Jew is hated and wronged almost everywhere, his is in so far the fault as he is an intruder virtually who by rights ought not to be where he is. Would even the scheme to remove the Jews to Palestine in effective numbers be feasible, we should still oppose the philosophy of the Zionistic propaganda.”
In 1900, Rabbi A.R. Levy wrote an article (Page 7) calling on Jews to go back to their roots and farm again, at least according to his views. Rabbi Levy then inspired others to speak about this topic: in 1902, Adolph Moses wrote an address (Page 16) discussing Jews farming in Palestine and the colonies for the Jewish Agriculturist and Aid Society. Rabbi Levy also published an article on how agriculture would be the most effective means to aid the Jewish poor in 1902 (Page 9). There was an novella that was serialized in The Reform Advocate, and Chapter 11 (Page 10) published in 1907 depicted characters debating on whether or not to farm and where they would rather live.
According to a 1913 article (Page 7), Professor Oppenheimer (not the one who headed the Manhattan Project) created a system for colonization in Palestine on behalf of the National Fund. The article claimed that the land in Palestine was neglected and Yemeni Jews were persecuted by ‘the Arabs.’ They were proud of some colonists for not using “Arabian day laborers” and hiring Yemeni Jews instead, as some businesspeople simply bought farms and hired “Arabs” as farmhands. The writer did not think too highly of Arabs, likening Bedouins to thieves and portrayed Arabs as timid and wary of the Jewish militias. There are a lot more interesting tidbits in this article, but I must move on. In 1914, Dr. Franz Oppenheimer wrote an article (Page 121) about a Jewish co-op colony, which mostly focused on why cattle breeding was important to pursue, comparing Arab farming techniques to Jewish ones, and sharing some tidbits on the colonization.
US Press
In 1890, the San Antonio Daily Light published an article about Jewish farming projects, and while the writer gave the Jews in Palestine credit for their efforts and successes, the tone had notes of contempt, notably the fact that the title was “Beggars in Jerusalem.”
In 1900, The San Francisco Call published “Horticulture in Palestine” that detailed Jewish success in agriculture and at the Paris Exposition, where Jewish colonists won gold medals for wine and grape brandy and silver medals for fruit trees and fruits. It also address an odd prejudiced stereotype that I’ve seen other Jews refute in their own articles:
There has been a good deal of scoffing at all attempts to settle Jewish colonists upon the lands of the ancient home of their race. The scoffers have asserted that the soil of Palestine is exhausted and incapable of making a profitable return for any extensive cultivation, and that the Jewish race is not fitted for agriculture. Assuming their assertions to be true, they have concluded that a Jewish colony would fail at farming anywhere, that any colony would fail at farming in Palestine, and that a Jewish colony farming in Palestine would have to quit after the second year and start life over again as dealers in rags and junk.
I don’t know why people had this prejudice that Jewish can’t farm; it just seems odd for it to be so prevalent that many people write newspaper articles refuting it. Maybe it’s the place? I do see this type of thing in Midwestern press, so perhaps it’s just an exclusionary position in a place and time where agriculture dominated the economy?
In 1903, the Wichita Daily Eagle published an article written by a reverend on the Jewish population in Palestine and mentioned the farms there. It was very anti-Jewish in tone, just look at the article’s headlines:
“Parasitical Jews Use Many Immoral Practices”
“FIGHTING AMONG THEM”
“Sephardim Knocking on the Ashkenazim”
Despite the antisemitism, there was an interesting quote from an enthusiastic Jewish nationalist, who said:
If the Jews are ever to be brought back to Palestine and their national existence restored—and only by being brought back to Palestine can the national existence be restored—then they must become agriculturists. They must become dependent upon themselves. It is a task of the greatest difficulty to bring back to the soil a people which has not been engaged in agricultural pursuits for centuries, and it can be accomplished only through the inspiration of some great motive. That great motive is to be found for the Jew in the love of his nation and the belief that in Palestine his nation is to be restored to its former glory.
In 1909, The Jewish Herald published an address to Zionists and extolled the agricultural and financial success of Jewish agricultural colonies in Palestine. Two things that are random but fascinating: one is that the Khedive of Egypt got most of his wines and grapes from these Jewish colonies. The other one is the phrasing of this sentence: “Grain of all kinds including rice—a cereal unknown in the ancient days of Palestine—cotton and silk have been successfully exploited.” Notice the “exploitation” not something benign like “put to good use.”
In 1910, The Midland Journal published a very short blurb about how American Jews were incorporating agricultural experiment stations in the US to establishing such stations in Palestine. In 1913, the Northern Wisconsin Advertiser published the results of a study that concluded that Palestine’s climate was just like California’s. Also in 1913, a Rabbi visited Palestine and wrote an article “Farming Jews in Palestine” in the Omaha Daily Bee. I found this excerpt particularly interesting:
If only Antisemites could ride through Palestine today and see what the Jewish pioneer farmer has done and is doing for the restoration of that ancient land, even they would not realize that there was not even a shadow of an excuse for the vicious calumnies they spread. To me it was like a breath of fresh air to leave Jerusalem behind and to ride into the open country of the Holy Land. For the first time in my life I saw whole settlements of Jewish farmers, Jewish grape growers, Jews trimming the olive and almond tree, Jews in the midst of the leafy bowers of their orange groves. Palestine is today a living refutation of the lie that the Jew has a disinclination to till the soil. I found ten thousand Jewish colonists living the healthy, happy, joyous life of freedom in the fields. Our party riding across the land were never in a moment's doubt as to when we were approaching a Jewish colony. The striking difference between the Jewish villages and the native Mohommedan villages could be seen miles off. Only when necessity compelled did we ride through a native Mohammedan village. The ugly huddled windowless stone huts, the debris rotting In the filthy, narrow, crooked street, the filth that these lazy peasants are too indolent to even remove from their own doors, the dirt and foul odors of those squalid Mohammedan villages were an ugly blot on a fair landscape. And then time and again we would top a rise or reach a point of vantage that looked down upon a Jewish farming settlement and what a gracious difference! The streets were laid out in long regular lines with the neat white stone walls of the houses and the red tile roofs glistening In the sun. And spread out before its were fair fields of waving grain, dotted here and there with clumps and groves of almonds and olives or with heavy masses of giant eucalyptus trees that broke the shadeless stretches of valley or plain and appealed with infinite charm to the aesthetic eye.
Now the racism is horrible, but note that the Muslims were considered “native,” which directly contradicts the Zionist rhetoric that Jews are the true indigenous people of Palestine. Again, the idea that Jewish people can’t farm is a weird prejudiced stereotype; the things people filled with hate come up with…
Summary
There is a lot going on in this article, and I apologize; it’s like multiple articles combined into one, but I didn’t see any way to break it up. Farming was obviously very important to Zionists for a variety of reasons and also dredged up a weird prejudiced stereotype about Jews. I’m interested in doing more work following up on the claim that Palestine’s land and soil was barren and neglected. The Palestinian article doesn’t go into much detail about the farms’ statuses, but Jewish authors and Zionist writers laude the success of Jewish agriculture. Again, this is something I will try to follow up on if I can.
There was prejudice all around. Jewish media had several articles on the causes of anti-Jewish sentiment in the same issues linked in this article. America seemed to be preferred over Europe, but there was still prejudice against Jews there. Zionists and their supporters treated Muslims, Arabs, and even Arab Jews as inferior, in line with white supremacist views of the time.
We have contradictions in and outside of the Zionist movement: rhetoric seems to swing from ‘Palestine is the only option’ to ‘anywhere is fine as long as we’re safe.’ Either Zionist rhetoric was in flux, or divergent thought was occurring simultaneously and I just didn’t find all the newspapers that would support the second theory. They’re an interesting read, so I highly recommend clicking the links and reading further for yourself.