ZIKHRON YAAKOV

view of Zikhron Yaakov, courtesy, TimeOut.com

Zikhron Ya'akov is a town in Israel, approximately 22 miles south of Haifa, and part of the Haifa District. It is located at the southern end of the Carmel mountain range overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, near the coastal highway. In 2019 it had a population of 23,206.

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 19^th 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).