JEWS AS FARMERS

Evening Star, Issue 23189, 11 February 1939, Page 20

JEWS AS FARMERS

TRIUMPH OVER DIFFICULT CONDITIONS [H. J. Shepstone, F.R.G.S., in the ‘ Weekly Scotsman.’J Despite the unsettled state of Palestine the Jew is as active as ever in establishing settlements in the land for the benefit of his distressed brethren in Central and Eastern Europe. As settlers arrive so new colonies are founded. Several have been created within the last few mouths.

It culls for courage and daring, as it means pioneering under considerable difficulties and even danger. Many of the settlements lie in out-of-the-way places, off the recognised route of traffic, and the colonists find it necessary to maintain a strict watch day and night against raids by armed rebel bands.

The colony of Ain Geb was the first settlement to be founded on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee. This is the country of the Gadarenes, mentioned in the New Testament. It was the scene of one of Christ’s miracles. The little settlement comprises some 40 souls, young Jewish men and women, a hardy and fearless band of pioneers. With its watch-tower, bullet-proof wall, and barbed wire defences, the settlement recalls the early pioneering days of Western America, when the white settlers lived in forts for fear of attack from hostile Red Indians. The settlement comprises about 1,250 acres, and the land was acquired by a private German-Jewish company. SDEI WARBURG. Another new settlement, only six months oId ; is Sdei Warburg (fields of Warburg) m the plain of Sharon, occupied by professional Jews from Germany—doctors, teachers, and students. Six months ago the area upon which the settlement stands' was bare sand dunes. To-day there are 33 charming bungalow residences and extensive fields set out as vegetable gardens. This colonisation of the Holy Land by the Jew is one worthy of notice in view of the plight of the Jew in Germany, coupled also with the vexed problem of his position in the land of his forefathers. It has brought to the fore a phase of Jewish character not generally recognised—his ability to adapt himself to farming and make a. success of it.

Generally speaking, one does not look upon the Jew as a tiller of the soil. Rather he is regarded as a keen financier, a. clever shopkeeper, and adept in seizing opportunities for trading. Yet in Palestine the Jew has shown himself an expert as a coloniser. He, before anyone else, has shown what can be done in wringing smiling harvests from the stony hillsides of this historic land.

With very few. exceptions the only modern farms in Palestine to-day are those belonging to the Jews. There are now over. 200 Jewish agricultural settlements, or colonies, in the country, upon which some 68,000 Jews are engaged in agricultural work. These settlements dot the land from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, the majority being found in the great Plain of Esdraelon, the Hebrew Emek, in Galilee.

PIONEER COLONISTS. While the greater majority of these settlements have been founded since the Great War, the colonisation of the Holy Land by the Jews may be said to date from the year 1870, when a band of French Jews, to assist their distressed brethren in Palestine, opened an agricultural school under the significant name of Mikveh Israel (the Gathering of Israel), not far from Jaffa. Kight years later came the establishment of the colony of Petach T'Jkvah (Door of Hope), and four years later again came the colony ol Rishon-le-Zion (the First to Zion). By 1904 the colonies numbered about JO when the work of colonisation came under the control of the Zionist Organisation. Up to this time the colonists had principally devoted their attention to the cultivation of vines and oranges. The Zionist Organisation struck a new note in that its colonisation was based on mixed farmingcereals, dairy produce, vegetables, poultry farming, and plantations. More colonies were added when further development was interrupted by the war.

Since then the Zionist organisation lias gone ahead, there being now over 200 Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine owning some 200,000 acres of land. The settlements vary considerably in size, and also in population, ranging from 800 to 1,500 acres in area, and from a score or so of settlers to as many as 700 or 800. They are in every sense of the term model institutions of their kind) The farm buildings are specially designed to meet the requirements of the country and the climate—well ventilated and roomy, and equipped with the latest laboursaving devices. The dwellings of the workers are constructed on hygienic lines and possess all necessary conveniences. SMALL HOLDINGS. In some colonies the farms are individually owned and run much as farms are in this country. They vary in size, and hired labour is the rule. The settler either buys his farm or is assisted in its purchase by one of the Jewish financial agencies, such as the Keren Hayesod. Then some settlements are split into small holdings, where each farm is entirely managed by the settler and his family, and is held on a hereditary lease. Although each individual family runs its own farm independently, there is a co-operative buying and selling agency, mutual help is systematised, and mutual responsibility is organised to a high degree. The village affairs are administered by a committee, which is representative of all the holders. But no wage labour is permitted, all work being carried out by the farmer and his dependents. There are 23 of these small holders’ settlements, or Moshavim. as they are called. Lastly, there are the Kvuzoth settlements, which have come in for severe criticism, both in Palestine and outside. In these colonies the whole State is worked and developed in common on an hereditary lease. Every member has equal rights, “ each giving according to his capacity and receiving according to his needs.” There are two types of these settlements, one in which the income is entirely derived from the produce of the estate, and the other in which it is partly derived from this source and in part from earnings of members engaged in work elsewhere, such as assisting in laying out a new settlement, road building, pipe laying for irrigation, etc. In both types all incomes and expenses are pooled. In these settlements we have a common dining room (where all members take their'meals), a common reception room, reading, recreation room, and the like. There is a common nursery, where all the children are looked after while their mothers see to the work of the home and attend to other duties.

EIN HAROD, The largest of these Kvnzoth settlements is Ein Harod, in the Plain of Jezreel. When I visited it the other 'Slimmer, the community numbered about 500 souls, and they were fanning over 5,000 acres. The cow sheds, stables, and buildings and their equipment were modern, and the bungalows of the married people quite attractive residences. New arrivals are sent here, and taught the various branches or farming before being transferred elsewhere.

What surprises one is to learn that many of these modern farm villages m Emek stand on what was, a few years ago, swamp land. Take the colony of Nahalal, as an example. It was founded in 1922, covers about 2,000 acres, and has a population of some GOO souls. The greater portion of the land on which it stands was swamp, the breeding ground of mosquitoes. One section of the swamp was known to the Arabs as “ ain sommune,” which means “ poisoned well,” and it was said that anyone who drank its water died of malaria.

Not only were the swamps drained and the mosquitoes got rid of, but the water was purified, aftd is now looked upon as the best drinking water in the Emek. Furthermore, water that was running to waste here is now used for irrigating the fields , and orchards. In design the settlement resembles a gigantic wheel, with the public buildings in the centre, surrounded by the farmhouses, from which radiate kitchen gardens running each in the form of a triangle with its apex towards the centre of the village buildings. Nahalal, it may be added, is a Moshavim, or smallholders’ settlement. COMPARISON OF CROPS. As every traveller who has visited Palestine knows, the laud is very stony, and when one remembers that it has been farmed over for thousands of years without any attempt whatever being made to replenish it by fertilisation, it is surprising that anything grows upon'it at all. Fortunately, however, it is a limestone country. Because of this, the peasant farmer is enabled to produce his meagre crops. The continual disintegration of the limestone gives the soil that property which enables it to make use of the nitrogen in the air. But the soil needs further replenishment if good crops are to be expected. When we remember the way in which the soil has been neglected, its poor condition as a result, and the primitive methods and implements of the peasant farmer, we begin to understand how he has been hopelessly beaten by the Jew with his more up-to-date machinery and scientific methods. This is evidenced by a comparison of their crops. With the Arabs cereals (wheat and barley), yield an average gross produce of about £1 per acre; in the better-class Jewish colonies, the fields yield up to £2 and £3 per acre, and more. In Arab orange groves. 350 cases or oranges per acre are considered a very good average crop; Jewish orange groves, as a rule, yield from 50 to 60 per cent. more. Arab vineyards yield on an average' from £6 to £7 value of gross produce per acre; the Jewish vine-planters obtain an average of £l2 to £l3. The milk cows of the fellahin give an average of from 130 to 160 gallons of milk per annum; those of the betterclass Jewish colonies give about 440 gallons, and more. The Arab poultryman does not obtain more than 70 eggs per year from his hens, against 150 to 180 from the Leghorn fowls on the Jewish farms. The proper preparation of the fields, early sowing, fixed crop rotations, use of organic and chemical fertilisers, and economical threshing, have increased the yield of the soil three and four-fold. HARD, PATIENT TOIL.

Most of the settlements are to-day in a self-supporting position, receiving no aid from the Zionist organisation. It has been the result of long, hard, patient toil, backed by the practical and scientific help 'of the Jewish Agricultural Experimental Station. There are also agricultural training schools for young women. Here girls receive all the practical and theoretical education they require for field, farmyard, and household life. A two years’ course is considered sufficient.

Experience to date shows that the cost of settling a family on the land l is about £7OO, exclusive of the purchase price of the land and initial development. The income from such a farm enables the settler to maintain household and stables, to pay off taxes, to set aside a certain reserve for amortisation, and exchange of inventory, and to pay off indebtedness to the colonising agency. The majority of the settlers are from Eastern Europe, though there are also many from the countries of Western Europe, from England, andl the British Empire, and America. But the Zionist organisation is a world-wide institution, and absorbs settlers from ail countries, from all classes, sects, and beliefs.