Saturday, September 11, 2021
MESSAGE TO READERS OF THIS BLOG
ZIKHRON YAAKOV
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| view of Zikhron Yaakov, courtesy, TimeOut.com |
During the time of Joshua, the area that is now Zikhron Yaakov
was allotted to the tribe of Menasheh. For centuries, since the Arab conquest
and occupation, the site was a swampy area occupied by several Arab settlements
– Zammarin, Tantura which was built
on top of the ancient Jewish town of Dor, Umm
al-Jimal, and Umm al-Tut. In the
19th century, most of the lands of this area were owned by Frances
Germain, a French citizen probably of Christian Arab origin. In December 1882,
he had sold a portion of the lands of Zammarin and Tantura for 46,000 francs to
a group of 100 Jews from Romania, members of the Hibbat Zion movement. The person probably most
responsible for organizing the arrival of this group was Moses Gaster, scholar and
early Zionist from Romania, and later, England. Deeming the name of “Zammarin”
to derive from "Samaria", for a number of years the place was called Shomron in
the Hebrew and Yiddish press. The difficulty of working the rocky soil and an
outbreak of malaria led many of the group to leave before the year was over. In
1883, Baron Edmond James de
Rothschild became the patron of the
community becoming one of the first Jewish agricultural communities to come
under his governance (along with Rishon LeZion and Rosh Pinna). The Baron renamed
the place, “Zikhron Yaakov”, in memory of his father, James (Ya'akov). He immediately drew up plans for a residential layout
and agricultural economy. Each farmer was given a salary and placed under the
direction of Elijah
Shaid, the Baron's clerk. Following a
number of economic failures, in 1885 Rothschild helped to establish the Carmel Winery,
together with a bottling factory. He
also commissioned the construction of the Ohel Ya'akov Synagogue
to serve the town. It opened in 1886. Now on a sound economic footing, the
residents began to engage themselves in
various occupations, such as growing wheat, breeding silkworms, keeping bees,
and raising vegetables. As evidence of the community’s prosperity, reference
must be made to the possession of a steam-plow, a steam-mill, an aqueduct, a large nursery-garden, paved streets, a library, a school, and a
hospital to be succeeded by Hillel Yaffe’s hospital which operated between
1907 and 1919, the only Jewish hospital north of Jaffa. In
the 1890’s, Zikhron Yaakov began to expand, alongside their Arab neighbors,
into Tantura which the residents named “Ahot Zikhron Yaakov” and founded by Rothschild,
Shefeya, Em
el-Gammal (Umm al-Jimal), and Em el-Tut (Umm al-Tut).
In 1900, the town passed from Rothschild
authority to that of the Jewish Colonization Association. In August 1903, the First Eretz Yisraeli Congress was assembled
by Menachem Ussishkin as a branch of the World Zionist Congress. It was originally intended as an annual gathering of the leaders
of the Yishuv. However, it only met that one time and their
only accomplishment was the establishment of the Teachers’ Union. In 1910 David Ben Gurion worked
as a farm laborer in Zikhron Ya'akov for several months. The town came to fame
during World War I for the establishment of the Nili spy
ring by Sarah Aaronsohn, together with her brothers, Aaron (a noted botanist) and Alex, and their friend Avshalom Feinberg. The group volunteered to spy
on Ottoman positions and report them to British agents
offshore. In September 1917, the Ottomans caught one of Sarah's carrier pigeons and
cracked the Nili code. In October, they surrounded Zikhron Ya'akov and arrested
Sarah and several others. After four days of torture, they planned on
transporting Sarah elsewhere during which time, she requested to be taken home
to change her clothes. But instead, she shot herself in the throat with a
pistol hidden in her bathroom, leaving her unable to speak, in order to avoid
releasing classified information. She died several days later. The Aaronsohn House–Nili Museum recreates
the history of this period. In 1954, the remains of Baron Edmond de Rothschild
were reinterred in Zikhron Ya'akov. During this period, its population
increased dramatically.
At present, many residents continue to engage in agriculture,
although upscale private homes have been built by families attracted to the
scenic landscape. There is also a high number of English speaking residents. In
addition, the town draws many tourists attracted to its picturesque setting and
historic city center whose restored
main street of landmark buildings, called Derekh HaYayin ("Path
of the Wine"), houses coffeehouses and boutique shops
selling locally-made crafts, jewellery, and antiques, especially on
the town's famous "Midrachov"
(Rechov haMeyasdim — Founders Street).
Saturday, September 4, 2021
TRIBE OF ZVULUN
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| view of Gath Hepher, courtesy, BiblePlaces.com |
When the Israelites
crossed over into the Land of Canaan, Elizaphan, son of Parnach, led Zvulun and
represented the tribe when the land was divided. The tribal allotment to Zvulun
was described in the Book of Joshua 19:10-15: “And the third lot came up for the children of Zvulun according
to their families; and the border of their inheritance was unto Sarid; And their border went up toward
the sea, and Maralah, and reached to
Dabbeshet, and reached to the [Kishon?] river that is before Yokneam; And turned from Sarid eastward
toward the sunrising unto the border of Chisloth-tabor,
and then goeth out to Daverat, and
goeth up to Japhia, And from thence
passeth on along on the east to Gath Hepher,
to Ittah Kazin, and goeth out to Remmon Methoar to Neah; And the border compasseth it on the north side to Hanaton: and the outgoings thereof are
in the valley of Jiphthah El; And Kattath, and Nahalal, and Shimron,
and Idalah, and Bethlehem: twelve cities with their villages.” Of the nineteen locations listed, only Bethlehem
of Galilee (seven
miles northwest of Nazareth) can be identified with certainty, although the
archaeological site Tel
Hanaton is
associated with the city Hanaton listed as on the boundary
with Asher.
In the ancient Song of Deborah, Zvulun is described as sending to battle those that
handle the sopher shevet. Traditionally this has been interpreted
as referring to the "rod of the scribe", an object that in Assyrian monuments was a wooden or metal stylus used to inscribe on clay tablets or papyrus; thus, those who wielded it would have
been the associates of lawgivers. Therefore, in Jewish tradition, the
tribe of Zvulun was considered to have a symbiotic relationship with the tribe of Issachar, its neighbor and a tribe that traditionally was seen as having
many scholars who disseminated the teaching of Torah and learning. They tended
to be financially supported by Zvulun who would, in turn, receive a share of
the spiritual reward from such learning.
During the
time of the Judge Gideon, the tribe answered the call to join in the battle
against Midian (Judges 6:35). Among Gideon’s successors was the Zvulunite Elon, who sat as judge of the nation for ten years (Judges 12:11). Of those who followed David to Hebron to make him king were 50,000 fully armed men of Zvulun with
no double heart (I Chronicles 12:33), who brought with them, as a
sign of their hearty allegiance, bounteous supplies of meat and drink to
celebrate the accession of their new ruler (I Chronicles 12:41). When Hezekiah made reparation for the abominations of his father Ahaz, he
invited all Israel, whether in the southern Kingdom of Judah or the northern
Kingdom of Israel, to keep the Passover in the House of the Lord. Mockery and ridicule met his emissaries.
Yet some were true to the religion of their fathers, and, even from far away Zvulun,
they made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and in the process, destroyed the idols there (II Chronicles 30:10–23). As part of the Kingdom
of Israel, the
territory of Zvulun was conquered by the Assyrians, and they,
along with the 10 other tribes that made up the Kingdom of Israel, were exiled, and soon became known as
the Lost Tribes of Israel – until in very recent years.
Since then,
Jews/Israelites, mostly of the tribe of Judah, have resettled the area. According
to the Christian New Testament, Jesus was raised in Nazareth which is in Zvulun
territory. The Gospels relate much about his Galilean ministry which mainly took
place in this territory. After the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70, Jews
still lived in the area, but on and off. The Tomb of Jonah in Gath Hepher became a place of pilgrimage. It was even
mentioned in the 12th century by the Jewish medieval geographer Benjamin of Tudela. The ancient Zvulunite
town of Shimron was mentioned by the geographer Ishtori Haparchi in his "Kaftor va-Feraḥ" in 1322. In
1850, the ancient site of Nahalal was identified by the geographer and
scientist Rabbi
Joseph Schwarz. In
1921, most of the Jezreel Valley,
which mostly lies within Zvulun territory, was acquired by the Palestine Land
Development Company, a Jewish company under Yehoshua Hankin, as part of
the Sursock Purchase.
(The Sursock family was a Greek Christian family of Beirut.) That year, Nahalal
was reestablished as the first moshav ovdim (workers' cooperative
agricultural settlement). (see Jezreel Valley, Nahalal) In 1926, Sarid was established as a
kibbutz by Jews from Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Soviet Union. On the other hand, by 1931, only 1
Jew lived in Bethlehem of Galilee, then, a settlement of German Templars. The
first families arrived in Yokneam in 1935. In 1936, Kibbutz Hazorea was established by German Jews.
That same year, the site of Shimron became an agricultural training station for
the Moshavim Movement,
becoming Kibbutz Timorim in 1948. Kibbutz Dovrat
was established on October 30, 1946 on the ancient site of Daverat by members
of the Zra'im group, mostly Jews from Austria and Germany who arrived
before the start of World War II. Shortly after the War
of Independence, Jewish farmers began to move into the region, joining existing
communities and establishing new ones such as Bethlehem of Galilee.
Israeli Knesset member Ayoob Kara, a member of the Druze community, speculated that the Druze are descended from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, probably Zvulun. Kara stated that the Druze share many of the same beliefs as Jews, and that he has genetic evidence to prove that the Druze were descended from Jews.