Address to theJewish Colonization Society of Vienna
I wish to thank the members of theColonization Society of Vienna for the opportunity they have given me to tellthem something about what I was able to observe in Palestine during my sixmonths' stay there in the spring and summer of 1907.
My address will fall into twoparts. The first will deal with that which I actually saw, in other words, withthat which is. In the second part I shall attempt to suggest that which oughtto be, in other words, what programmatic work should be undertaken on behalf ofthe Jews of Palestine in order to raise them to a higher economic level.
Every study of present-dayconditions in Palestine must use as its starting point the manner in which the80,000 Jews of that country immigrated -- beginning with the few thousandSephardic Jews who were already to be found there a century ago.
Jewish immigration into Palestinecannot be subsumed under the same general heading as Jewish immigration into othercountries. Whereas immigration into other countries has been motivated entirelyby economic considerations, that is, by the impulse to find better economicconditions, the motives which impelled the Jews to migrate toward Palestinewere not economic but predominantly religious.
This difference of motives findsclear expression in the composition of the Jewish immigrant groups. the Jewswho have migrated from East Europeans countries to the United States are, forby far the greatest part, between the ages of 15 and 45, that is, the age ofmaximum earning capacity. But until twenty years ago the Jews migrating toPalestine went there almost exclusively to die in the Holy Land; persons ofadvanced age, who could not support themselves by work, but who had to besupported by charity while they devoted themselves exclusively to religiousduties.
They could rely on this charitywith a certain degree of confidence, for since the middle of the 19th centurythere has existed in Europe a widely ramified organization for the collectionof funds for the support of the Jews of Palestine; every year large sums arecollected and transmitted for that purpose. This is the famous Chalukkah. Thedistribution of the Chalukkah in Palestine is not guided by the relative needsof the recipients, it follows the simpler rule of the counting of heads. EveryJew who enters Palestine is added to the register, and is entitled to hisproportionate share of the money sent into Palestine by the country of hisbirth. The per capita income from this source is fairly large in the case ofthe Hungarian Jews, since there are few of them in the country; for oppositereasons that of the Polish and Russian Jews is fairly small. The method ofdistribution of the Chalukkah has many defects, for there are Jews receivingChalukkah who could very well support themselves by the work of their hands.Apart from this, the administration and distribution of such a fund is almostinevitably bound up with the evils of nepotism.
The Jewish population of Palestineconsists of three distinct strata. The first is made up of those Sephardic Jewswho have lived in the country for centuries, have become closely assimilated,in mores and in the general mode of life, to the local Arabs and who, side byside with Spaniolo, speak Arabic too. A good picture of the life of these Jewsis furnished by the town of Saida (the ancient Sidon) where 2000 Jews -- all ofthem Sephardic -- may be found. They receive no Chalukkah, earn a difficult andpitiful living as small merchants and artisans, are poorly educated and of anot particularly high moral standing. The Jews of Morocco, Persia and theYemen, who have come into Palestine of recent years, may be lumped togetherwith this group.
The second stratum is composed ofthe Ashkenazic Jews who have come into Palestine during the last hundred yearsfor religious reasons, and for whom the Chalukkah system exists. They havetended to concentrate in Jerusalem, but numbers of them are also to be found inSafed, Tiberias and Hebron, where they have settled side by side with the olderSephardic population, from who they keep aloof, however, on the ground of theirsuperior Jewish learning. Safed with its 8000, Tiberias with its 5000 andHebron with its 1000 Jews are very much alike. They are typical Chalukkahtowns.
In this second stratum there is noeconomic life to speak of. The few occupations which have been taken up -- ofwhich the principal is trading with the Bedouins -- bring in very little. Hencethese cities present, to European eyes, a wretched picture of cultural andeconomic stagnation. There is no connection with the outside world. Newspapersand modern books are unknown in these places, and life goes on as it did ahundred years ago. The kindergartens of the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden andthe schools of the Alliance Israelite find it extremely difficult to introducea new education content into this population. The condition of thesecommunities may be illustrated by the following incident. In Safed I visited aJew who told me that his income amounted to eighty francs a month, and that hewas therefore considered very well to do, and was much envied. The averagemonthly income of a Sephardic Jew is somewhere between thirty and forty francs.
In Jerusalem conditions differ fromthose which obtain in the three above-mentioned cities: the reasons being that,in addition to the original Sephardic and the later Chalukkah Ashkenazicpopulations, we find a considerable element, of recent growth, which earns itsliving by work; it is composed partly of Jews from Persia, Yemen, Bokhara andMorocco, and partly of young Jews of the modern type from Eastern Europe, whohave come to Palestine under the influence of the Zionist idea. It is anexceedingly motley mixture of Jews from all the countries under the sun whichmakes up the Jewish population of Jerusalem. There are many interestingobservations to be made on the diverse modes of life adopted by these Jewishsettlers. The Bokharian Jew is generally well to do or even rich, and it is a matterof pride with him to have a handsome and roomy house in Jerusalem. TheEast-European Jew builds himself a small, wretched dwelling. Even moreprimitive is the e mode of life of the Yemenite Jew, who is happy to have anysort of home. Nevertheless these immigrants from Yemen are a valuable elementfor Palestine, for they are able, by virtue of the fewness of their needs, tocompete successfully with the cheap labour of the Arabs. Apart from this, theyare so accustomed to heavy physical labour that they can easily be transformedinto agricultural workers, and from all appearances they will play aconsiderable role in this field.
In Jerusalem, again, have beenconcentrated the most important educational and hygienic institutes, There arethe big hospitals, schools, orphan homes, the Bezalel Arts and Crafts School,the National Library, etc. Jewish influence in Jerusalem is, however,considerably smaller than might be expected for the fact that the Jews make upsixty to seventy per cent of the population. The reason for this apparentanomaly is that political influence is a consequence of economic power, and theJews of Jerusalem lack economic power. It is still the Chalukkah which is themain support of the community. An increasing number of Jews may, indeed, befound turning to labour and trade; but this phenomenon is more or less of anexperiment, which we hope will be successful and will grow in t he future. Thefact that the Jews of Jerusalem are a majority finds expression in the Hebrewand Yiddish signs which cover the shops nearly everywhere. The post offices ofthe foreign governments have Hebrew notices, while the Turkish post office inthe Jewish quarter even has a Hebrew rubber-stamp. A large mill has recentlybeen acquired by Jews.
The third stratum of the Jewishpopulation consists of those who have come into the country during the lasttwenty or thirty years as a result of the Chibath Zion, or the Zionistmovement, some to take up agriculture, others to settle in Jerusalem, Haifa, orJaffa -- where older Jewish communities already existed -- and to take up tradeor some handicraft. Jerusalem has already been referred to above. There islittle to say about Haifa; among the 2000 Jews to be found there, 1800 areSephardic, 200 Ashkenazic. Some wealthy Russian Jews have founded here an oiland soap factory which gives employment to a large number of Jews. The openingof the Haifa-Damascus railroad has had a healthy influence on the harbouractivities of Haifa, with a consequent improvement in the economic life of thecity; this improvement has in turn been of benefit to the Jews, whose conditionis relatively satisfactory.
This third stratum of Jews nowunder consideration received its largest addition in Jaffa, whose Jewishpopulation of 8000 is divided equally among Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews, noneof whom receive Chalukkah support. Jaffa differs from, let us say, Jerusalem,in not being under the pressure of an ancient and unproductive settlement,hostile to all innovation; this city has therefore become the centre of modernJewish life in Palestine. Fifty years ago there were hardly any Jews in Jaffa;thirty years ago they counted 1000; within the last few decades the number hasgrown to 8000. It is in Jaffa that we find the beginnings of a modernindustrial development. There is a large machine shop which employs about 100Jewish workers.
The Jews also share in the exportand import trade, but their role in this activity leaves much to be desired.The proximity of the Jewish colonies of Petach Tikvah, Rishon le Zion andRehovoth has had an invigorating effect on the city, as the colonists selltheir produce to Jaffa, and in turn make their purchases in the city. But veryfew Jews of Jaffa can be considered comfortably off; for the most part they stilllead a hand to mouth existence.
Of considerable importance toJaffa is the recently founded Hebrew Gymnasium, which is dominated by a modernand progressive spirit. Apart form this, the Gymnasium has adopted Hebrew asthe language of tuition; it therefore serves as a means of spreading Hebrewthrough wider and wider circles of the Jewish population.
To all the foregoing must now beadded a brief description of the Jewish colonies and Jewish agricultural life.The colonies have been founded within the last thirty years, and along twolines: some by young people who came out of Eastern Europe, bringing with themmuch enthusiasm and industriousness, but little by way of experience oreconomic resources; others by the programmatic colonization work of BaronRothschild. With few exceptions (e.g., Rehoboth) the first type of colony wentto pieces in the first few years, or found itself compelled to place itselfunder the protection of Baron Rothschild. The colonization work of the Baronhas achieved much for Palestine and has created enduring values. enormous sumshave, indeed, been swallowed up by it; nor can it be said that the colonieshave come up o the expectations with which the founder may have started out.But the fault lies not with the work of the Baron, but with the fact that, whenhe resolved to undertake Jewish colonization in Palestine, he already found anumber of Jewish colonies in a desperate condition, and was compelled,willy-nilly, to begin with these. Most of the mistakes which have been made inthe colonization work may be traced back to this situation.
The first mistake which I mustpoint out was the fact that the persons who were to be transformed into farmersdid not know enough about agriculture. They had not been brought into thecountry according to plan; they had simply come, had installed themselves oneway or another as agriculturalists, soon found themselves at the end of theirmeans, and called for help. It is difficult to find among the Jews the rightsort of human material for agriculture; there are, indeed, statistics ofRussian, Galician and East European Jews who live by agriculture; but thereseems to be a wide gap between these statistics and what I have observedpersonally in East Europe. The Jews who, according to the statistical tables,belong in the class of agriculturalists, are for the most part not farmers, butlandowners, who lease out their lands, or agricultural day labourers, or elsesmall cattle-breeders; in any case, they are not the type of farmer which isneeded for Palestine. In consequence it appears altogether doubtful whether weshall find, anywhere in the world, Jews whose abilities and training would fitthem to become successful farmers in Palestine. It will be necessary to put theland settlers thorough a period of preliminary training in the country itselfso that they may win the necessary experience acclimatize themselves, becomeaccustomed to the work, and in general become acquainted with the generalconditions obtaining in Palestine.
The second mistake consisted inthe fact that persons who were in desperate need suddenly found themselves,through the munificence of Baron Rothschild, in possession of considerablesums, and could without any effort on their own part obtain all sorts ofequipment which other farmers must as a rule acquire slowly, through the years,and by the sweat of the brow. And the old rule still holds, that the man whoacquires the means to a livelihood only after much effort, prizes and guardsthese means, while the man who has these means thrown into his lap will notknow how to appreciate them. We therefore find in Palestine a vast differencebetween German and Jewish colonists in regard to the card which they bestow ontheir live and other stock. This has nothing to do with inferior ability on thepart of the Jews but with the circumstance that the German colonist has createdwhat he possesses by his own labour, and he treats it with more care, foresightand affection. The superior stability of the German on the land, again, is connectedwith the organic way in which he acquired, and grew with, his possessions; theJew obtained his as it were overnight.
The third mistake was the systemof administration, which blocked the development of a spirit of independenceamong the colonists. An agricultural expert was appointed for every group ofcolonies; his instructions to the colonists were binding, but the risk wascarried, formally and legally, by the colonists themselves. A situation likethis is impossible in the long run. I can imagine two methods of agriculturalcolonization. A man may work under the direction of an administrator, butwithout accepting responsibility. It is also possible for a settler to make hisown decisions on his own responsibility. But it is hard for me to imagine asystem under which the farmer must bear the responsibility while following theinstructions of the administrator. It is for this reason that the Jewishcolonist does not feel the same responsibility as the farmer who takes the riskfor his own decisions. I will cite only one example of the disadvantages whichresult from this system of guardianship over the colonists. a tone time anumber of Jewish colonies, under instruction from Baron Rothschild, planted acertain variety of grape. Later it was found that this variety did not pay. Theconsequence was that colonists were compelled to uproot the vines, and to askthe Baron to make good their losses. which he did.
The fourth mistake , it seems tome, lies in t the fact that many colonies are built on the culture of a singleproduct; they go in exclusively for grapes, or oranges, or grain; as a resultthe risk is much greater; to this must also be added the consequence that suchcolonists are employed only during part of the year. During the remaining timethey are condemned to idleness.
Now these mistakes did not escapethe notice of the administrators, and for many years attempts were made to finda way out. Efforts were made to increase the self-reliance and independence ofthe colonists by limiting the competence of the administrators. For instance,the wine-cellars of Rishon le Zion, which were at first directed by theadministration, were placed under the care of a committee of colonists. Inchoosing settlers for the colony of Ekron and for the recently founded coloniesin Galilee, much care was exercised, and only those received land who wereacquainted with Palestinian agriculture, in particular the sons of oldercolonists and agricultural workers. But was found impossible to undo all theharm which had resulted from the earlier mistakes. The old generation ofcolonists has been brought up in a spirit of complete dependence; wheneversomething goes wrong, they come running for assistance; it is only here andthere, among the new generation, that we find more spirit.
In conclusion, we may say that thecolonization work of the Baron was the enterprise of a rich man who wanted toindulge in the luxury of seeing a piece of work completed in less time than itshould have taken by a process of organic growth. In any event, the moneyinvested has not been lost. Baron Rothschild found himself reimbursed by theincrease in land values, so that even the over-expenditure was made good. Butfrom the point of view of the Jew who today wishes to settle on the land inPalestine, the value of the BaronÕs work cannot be over-estimated. Our positiontoday is very different from what it would have been if we had had to start ourcolonization work form the beginning. How important the colonies are is provedby the role which the four or five German colonies in the country play ascentres of support for Germany. How much more important for the Jews are thetwenty five colonies which they can call their own. Mention should, indeed, bemade of the inclination among the young manhood of certain colonies to migratefrom the country; in particular is this true of second and third sons; thereason is that they can see no future for themselves in the country.Unfortunately they leave Palestine not as Syrians leave Syria, namely with theintention of making some money abroad and for returning with their savings; ifthey leave Palestine it is for good.
In contrast with the pitiful Arabvillages, with their huts of baked clay, the Jewish colonies, with their widestreets, their strong stone houses and their red-tiled roofs, look likeveritable oases of culture. The Jewish colonists have also contributed a greatdeal to the technical improvement of Palestinian agriculture. They have beenparticularly active in plantation work -- oranges, almonds and olives. The bestproof of this success is to be found in the fact that the German colonists ofSarona employ Jewish workers in order to start plantations, and pay them at thehigh rate of five or six francs a day.
In grain farming the Germans arein advance of the Jews, but the Jews have been pioneers in the starting ofplantations; they were the first to resort to deep well boring, and it is theywho have brought the orange culture of the country to its present high level.
There is a lively spiritualactivity in the colonies, and Jewish self-consciousness finds much strongerexpression here than in the cities. Hebrew is rapidly gaining ground as thelanguage of daily use. In the streets one hears the children speaking onlyHebrew; it is from the colonies that the language thrusts its way into thecities. where it is already playing an important role.
Permit me now to devote a littleattention to my second thesis: what can be done in Palestine? With regard tothe cities, the answer is not difficult. We must liquidate the Chalukkahsystem, which still provides most of the Jews with the largest part of theirincome, by the substitution of work. In the last decade Palestine has beenlifted to a new economic level, and the standard of life has risen not onlyamong the Jews, but among the Arabs too. The latter are beginning to dressEuropean fashion, and in this way they have increased the home market.Nevertheless, the purchasing power of Palestine is still low. We still see noprospect of so raising it as to absorb our 80,000 Jews in internal commerce andindustry. The market is too small. Jews are, indeed, to be found in the importand export trade, which is almost exclusively devoted to agricultural products(grain and sesame), but here too only a relatively small number of Jews canmake a living. there is, in my opinion, only one way of providing work for theJews, and that is by the creation of industrial enterprises with large exportpossibilities. Certain articles can be produced in factories; some, indeed, arealready being produced. But the erection and equipment of factories calls forheavy investment, and the absence of coal and iron in Palestine will always bea certain obstacle in the way of the development of heavy industry. A muchbetter prospect is offered by the introduction of small industry, such as canbe carried on in the home or in small workshops, with human instead ofmechanical power. There is already one town in Palestine which supports itselfalmost entirely through small industry of this kind, namely Bethlehem, wherepractically the entire Christian population is engage din the production ofsacred images and travellers momentoes made of mother-of-pearl, which find amarket chiefly in America. The same is true of the Christians of Nazareth. Thecentre of small industry is, however, Syria -- chiefly Damascus. here it ismostly the Sephardic Jews who are employed in small industry. Form Damascuscomes the well-known type of furniture pieces inlaid with mother-of-pearl orwith mosaics of other woods; likewise utensils of beaten copper. Some 10,000workers are said to be thus employed, one half of them Jews, so that thegreater part of the Jewish population of Damascus supports itself through smallindustry. The earning in this line of work are small; nevertheless theunprejudiced observer detects a great difference between the life in Damascusand the life in Jerusalem. Wherever one passes through the streets of Damascusthere is a busy life; here are people who have something to do and knowsomething about the value of time. Jerusalem is, by contrast, like a city ofthe dead; its inhabitants have no constant occupation, and they are hard put toit to pass the time. I would therefore recommend, as the first step in theimprovement of the economic condition of the Jews of Palestine, theintroduction of small industry, and that preferably in Jerusalem, whichcontains two thirds of the Jewish population of Palestine. A beginning hasalready been made with the Bezalel Arts and Crafts School, founded in 1906. Awell developed small industry could be of advantage to, and derive benefitsfrom, the Bezalel school. As things are today, Palestine lacks a small industrywhich could absorb the pupils of the Arts and Crafts School, and put theirtraining to use. On the other hand, a small industry would itself also benefitby the existence of the school.
It is only by an improvement intheir economic condition that the Jews of Palestine will be able to get thefull advantage of the high standard of education which they enjoy. Today theboy who has received a training in European languages simply does not know whatto do with it; he is too educated to be satisfied with those occupations whichare accessible to him in Palestine; he is unhappy in Palestine, and at thefirst opportunity migrates, so that it may be said that all the education whichthe Jews of Palestine receive only serves to drive them out of the country.Improvement of hygienic conditions is also important for the cities. Cityhygiene is the weakest point in the Turkish administration; in fact, it canhardly be said to exist at all.
I turn now to the colonies. Twoquestions arise at once: What is to happen with those colonies which alreadyexist, and how shall colonization be extended, i.e. how shall we found newcolonies? It will be necessary for the colonists to turn to mixed farming. Theymust not be content with plantations alone; they must also take upgrain-growing. It is an immense disadvantage for the plantation colonists thatduring the many months when nothing can be done in the orchards, theypractically forget their work, and in general find it difficult to overcome thehabit of laziness into which they have fallen. This can be avoided if, side byside with the plantations, there is also the cultivation of grain. In thisfashion a problem of prime importance, namely, the labour problem, will also besolved. Hitherto the plantation colonists have been able to employ Jewishworkers for only part of the year. As the demand for workers increased inseason, it was of course impossible to find Jewish workers in sufficientnumbers; Arab workers were therefore engaged from the nearest village. Theconsequence has been that in many colonies more Arab than Jewish workers areemployed at certain seasons of the year: which is a most undesirable state ofaffairs. If every colony had wheat cultivation as well as plantations, theJewish worker could find employment all the year round.
Of very great importance is theproblem of drawing the women into agricultural work. While in the Germancolonies nearly every woman has the dairy work to look after, nothing of thesort is to be found in the Jewish colonies, simply because the production ofmilk has not been undertaken. The production of fodder has been neglected, sothat it is difficult to keep cattle; and thus neither milk nor butter can bebought in the Jewish colonies. But there is a great deal more to be done inthis direction; more attention must be paid to chicken and vegetable farmingthan has been paid till now. While the Arabs make immense sums of money out ofvegetable farming, the Jewish colonies have hardly begun to do anything in thisfield.
Important, too, is the extensionof credit to cover agricultural enterprises. Mortgage credit, of the kind whichhas rendered invaluable service in Germany is, indeed, impossible in Palestinebecause of the peculiar legal complications bound up with the holding of landin the Jewish colonies; but as far as personal credit is concerned, a greatdeal can be done through the extension of the cooperative system, which atpresent has merely made a beginning.
Nor must we neglect the questionof a network of roads between the colonies. It would be an excellent thing ifthe largest colonies of Judea could be connected with Jaffa by spur railroadlines; I understand that steps have already been taken to obtain these smallconcessions from the Turkish government.
And now, in closing, I turn to thequestion of how to proceed to the extension of our colonies. We must make sure,before we provide prospective settlers with land, whether as lessees or asowners, that they have a practical knowledge of Palestinian agriculture; theymust also be accustomed to the country and its climate. Secondly, through theintroduction of a system of mixed farming, we must make it possible for thecolonists to put their labour to use throughout the entire year. Thirdly,before we help a colonist to become a farmer for himself, we must see to itthat he is at least able to provide himself with live stock out of his ownmeans.
But the problem before us is noteasily solved; for most of the Jews who come to Palestine have no means oftheir own, and it is precisely the best and most industrious elements which arethus prevented from working their way up from the status of worker to that ofindependent farm lessee or owner.
The ICA has tried to introduce achange into its colonization system. In Sedjera (Palestine) and Leloir (theArgentine) it has a new method. The Jews are first given employment as workerson a large farm; then, when they have become accustomed to the agriculturallife, they are helped toward becoming independent farmers by being given, asleaseholders, a reasonable stretch of land and, by way of credit, the firststock and whatever is necessary for the building of a house. It no longerissues to the settlers instructions as to how they are to work the land, andthe responsibility rests entirely with the settlers. This method promises muchbetter results than were e obtainable with the older one.
This closes my brief report. Ishould be happy to feel that the little I have said concerning the work inPalestine has convinced you that the country is one which affords greatpossibilities which need only be approached methodically and systematically inorder to come to fruition.
Translatedfrom the German, anonymously Published in 1936 by HaÕaretz Press, Palestine