In The Footsteps Of The Baron

Baron Edmond James de Rothschild (1845-1934) was the third son of James Mayer de Rothschild, head of the Rothschild family branch in France. Following pogroms in Russia against the Jewish community in 1891-1892, he was active in the French committee assisting with the Russian Jewish migration. His interest in Eretz Yisrael began at this time.

During the 1880s, the first settlements established by Zionists were in severe financial difficulties that threatened their continued existence. During the years 1883-1889, Baron de Rothschild covered the expenses of Rishon LeZion, Zichron Ya'akov, Rosh Pinna and Ekron, and donated over 5 million pounds for other settlements. The use of his donations was overseen by hired clerks and specialists, while the Baron himself also visited Eretz Yisrael several times. Baron de Rothschild demanded to remain anonymous and he was mostly known as "HaNadiv" or "The great benefactor."

His relation to the Zionist movement was ambivalent. He did not support Theodor Herzl and disagreed with Hovevei Zion. His help was exclusively to moshavot, and not to communal settlements such as moshavim or kibbutzim. However, during World War I, he gradually became more closely associated with the Zionist movement, particularly following the Balfour Declaration and the post-war Paris Peace Conference.

In 1923, he established PICA (the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association) to administer his lands in Eretz Yisrael, placing his son James as its President.

There are three towns that began their life as projects of Baron Rothschild. The oldest of the three is Zichron Ya'akov, founded in 1882. Next in line is Givat Ada in 1903 and finally Binyamina in 1922. All three have names that commemorate the Rothschild family. Zichron Ya'akov is named for the father of the Baron, James Mayer de Rothschild ("James" being derived from the Hebrew name Ya'akov, Jacob). Givat Ada was named after the Baron's wife Ada (Adelaide) de Rothschild, while Binyamina was named after the Baron himself, the Baron Edmond Benjamin Janes de Rothschild.

Binyamina and Givat Ada are situated in the valley of Bikat HaNadiv, while Zichron Ya'akov is on a ridge to the north. On a recent winter visit to all three towns the valley was green and lush, and we could see many small streams which were tributaries of Nahal Tananim and were areas that had been malarial swamps when the first settlers arrived.

Our visit began with a breakfast stop at Etz HaSadeh in Givat Ada. The moshava was established in 1903 by eight families from Zichron Ya'akov. It was established as an agricultural settlement with the main farming branches being field crops and vegetables, and later grapes. The founders of Etz HaSadeh were among the 8 families who bought the land from Baron Rothschild, who had bought thousands of dunams to found Jewish settlements. They are a branch of the Teperberg family, of wine fame, but who have exchanged grapes for olives.

While we were eating, one of the sons told us the story of the family (5 generations, 117 years, beginning in Jerusalem) and of the current woes of the olive industry (hard to compete with Spain). He showed us the first 8 houses built in a row along a dirt road, and told us about the work of clearing and draining the swamps, and the gradual growth of the village.

His grandfather was in the Palmach with Yigal Alon, while his grandmother took care of the farm. His father put the land into olive orchards and they have developed a line of cosmetics with the oil as well as other items. We were able to taste the olive oil made from 5 different varieties of olives, and to purchase oil from one variety or from a blend. It was interesting that there were clear differences in the taste of the oil among the different varieties.

In 2003, Givat Ada and Binyamina were merged into one authority as part of an initiative by the Ministry of the Interior regarding the unification of local authorities in Israel. After breakfast we traveled a few kilometers to the Founders' House Museum in Binyamina, passing the train station. Interestingly, the train station existed before the settlement was founded. The train tracks and a camp with a train station were from the time of the Ottomans, and after World War I a British camp was established.

In 1923, 30 German families arrived to found the settlement, along with some families from Zichron Ya'akov as well. A few years later the village imported 45 cows from Holland, and later built a plant to produce the first pasteurized milk in the country. In the museum we saw a film showing the yearly migration of the cows to new pasture, similar to the trek of cows in Switzerland to summer pasture. In this case it was from one pasture to another, not up or down a mountain.

At the Founders' House we were given a guided tour of the various rooms and exhibits. At the front is a café. The house was donated to the community by Menahem Mendel Chudkov, one of the first settlers. It is a building with a farm courtyard and a kitchen with exhibits, photos, furniture, housewares, musical instruments and more. The courtyard displays a wide range of work tools and agricultural equipment from the beginning of the settlement in Binyamina, with the names of the families that donated each piece. There is also a renovated dovecote in the courtyard.

Each room exhibits a different era, beginning with the first few years of the settlement. Especially interesting was a clandestine radio from the later period of the British Mandate, which was hidden in a cabinet and the antenna disguised as a washing line. Visitors could listen to the reports sent out to various members of the Haganah during the riots of 1936-1939. The museum also featured a room devoted to the Israeli songwriter Ehud Manor, who wrote over 1200 songs, some of them about Binyamina, his birthplace.

As in other communities that were supported by the Baron, a number of enterprises were founded to see which would help establish the village economically. One of them was the plant to pasteurize milk. Another was to grow jasmine for the perfume and cosmetic industry. This required harvesting the flowers at night before their scent dissipated in the hot daylight. A group of immigrants from Georgia worked in this enterprise. Unfortunately, according to our guide, the jasmine scent was not of high quality and this enterprise failed.

After our visit to Binyamina, it was time to see the oldest moshava in the area, Zichron Ya'akov.

It was one of the first Jewish settlements of Halutzim in the country, founded in 1882 by Romanian Jews. In December 1882, 100 Jewish pioneers from Romania, members of the Hovevei Zion movement, purchased two plots of land 5 km apart: 6000 dunam in Zammarin and 500 dunam in Tantura. The land was acquired for 46,000 francs from Frances Germain, a French citizen, probably of Christian Arab origin. However, the difficulty of working the rocky soil, the outbreaks of malaria, and the problem of unfriendly Arab neighbors led many of the founders to leave in the first year. Consequently, in 1883 the Halutzim asked Baron Edmond James de Rothschild for help. He became the patron of the settlement and the people renamed their town in honor of his father. The Baron drew up plans for the residential layout and agricultural economy.

To accomplish his first objective, Baron de Rothschild brought in planners, who designed and allotted housing lots along the main road for the use of settlement farmers. Each lot included a house facing the street, a long interior courtyard and a rear building for storing agricultural implements. The French-inspired architecture included tiled roofs and painted wooden windows. Each farmer was given a salary and placed under the direction of Elijah Shaid, the Baron's clerk. This linear plan was replicated in the other villages that the Baron helped, including Givat Ada and Binyamina.

Following a number of economic failures, in 1885 Rothschild helped to establish the first winery in Israel, Carmel Winery, together with a bottling factory, in Zichron Ya'akov. This was more successful economically although it was initially short-lived, as in 1892 the grapevines succumbed to phylloxera, an aphid which eats the roots. After a brief set-back, American rootstocks which were resistant to phylloxera were planted and the winery began to flourish. Today, the winery remains in action, as do the huge wine cellars that were carved into the mountain over a century ago.

Rothschild funded a glass factory that would supply bottles for his wineries. Rothschild met Meir Dizengoff in Paris and chose Dizengoff to launch and manage the new factory, called Mizaga. Dizengoff opened the factory in Tantura in 1892 and managed the factory for approximately two years. Mizaga was the first Jewish-owned factory in Ottoman Palestine.

In Zichron Ya'akov, we toured the museum complex of the most famous of its citizens, Aaron Aaronsohn, an agronomist who studied agronomy and botany in France on a stipend from the Baron, and was the discoverer of emmer (Triticum dicoccoides), believed to be "the mother of wheat." The museum is dedicated to Aaronson and the Nili spy ring that he and his siblings were involved in during World War I. The story is an involved one and the museum is worth an article of its own.

The museum complex is close to the beginning of the pedestrian street that was the original main road planned for the village. At the other end of the street is the Ohel Ya'akov synagogue. It was commissioned by the Baron to serve the town and is named after his father. Sparing no expense to build the edifice, the synagogue features a majestic ark made of white marble.

The synagogue opened in 1886 and has conducted daily prayer services since then. It was also a symbol of the problems of the towns that were supported by the Baron at the end of the 19th century. It was built by the Templars living in Haifa, and is in the style of the reform movement which was popular in France. The Halutzim in the town were from Eastern Europe and orthodox, and the style was not what they wanted. The seating was like in a church, rows of seats facing the bimah, and only one large central door leading in. They were used to seating on three sides around the bimah, with separate entrances for men and women. After a struggle, sometime in the early 20th century two doors were added to the front façade of the synagogue to accommodate the worshipers. Around the same time, the Baron ceased supporting and overseeing the existing settlements, although the establishment of PICA in the 1920s continued his work of buying land and setting up business ventures.