Ness Ziona

Mister Handmade in Israel and I recently went on a guided tour of Beit Rishonim (Founders' House) in Ness Ziona, a town in central Israel. The little museum, which originally served as the schoolhouse, the synagogue, the city council building and the community centre, now documents the history of the town since its founding. Built in 1907 by Reuven Lehrer and his family, the museum houses pictures of the first settlers, artifacts and historical documents.

Ness Ziona's first communal building, 1907.

Ness Ziona was first known as Wadi Hunayn, after the local Arab village. In 1878 the German Templer Gustav Reisler purchased land there and changed its name to Wadi Chanin. He planted an orchard there but after his family died from malaria, Reisler returned to Europe. In 1882 he travelled to Odessa and met Reuven Lehrer, a religiously observant Russian Jew with Zionist ideals. Lehrer owned farmland in Russia and Reisler traded his Palestine land for Lehrer's land, Lehrer believing that the land he had received was "near" Jerusalem. In 1883 Lehrer emigrated to Palestine with his eldest son Moshe. His wife and four of his children arrived the following year. They settled on the land which became known as Nahalat Reuven (Reuven's Estate). 

Photo credit: Netto Design House

In 1887, after the family had begun to cultivate grapes, almonds and raise bees, Lehrer posted signs at the arrival gate in the Jaffa port imploring fellow Jews to help him settle the land. These new arrivals established a separate neighbourhood named Tel Aviv (the city of Tel Aviv did not yet exist). In 1891 Michael Halperin, a member of the First Aliyah, bought more land in the wadi. He arrived at a village ceremony riding his horse and waving a blue and white flag inscribed with the words "Ness Ziona" emblazoned in gold. "Ness Ziona" means "Banner to Zion". This motto is based on a verse in the Book of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 4:6). In 1897 Halperin offered this flag, minus the words Ness Ziona, to the first Jewish Congress in Basel, which was presided over by Theodor Herzl. It was later adopted by the State of Israel as the national flag. Halperin's actions led the settlers to change the settlement's name to Ness Ziona.

In due course, the colonies of Nahalat Reuben and Ness Ziona, the neighbourhood of Tel Aviv in Ness Ziona and the Arab village Wadi Hunayn merged into a single, larger village. Its main export was citrus, grown in orchards that were irrigated by numerous wells dug around the village. The residents worked in the orchards and sold their yield in the cities. Lining the walls of Beit Rishonim are old photos of camels carrying boxes of oranges to the market in Jaffa and the first Jewish pioneers toiling in the fields. By the 1920s, despite difficult struggles against neighbouring Arabs, malaria and challenging agricultural conditions, Ness Ziona was thriving and prosperous.

Photo credit: The Ness Ziona Workers, 1883-1948, by Yoav Regev

The Great Synagogue of Ness Ziona, located next door to Beit Rishonim, bottom photo, was built in the 1920s, during the period of the Third Aliyah. In 1924 the British Army contracted with the Israel Electric Company to supply wired electric power to Ness Ziona. Until the 1948 War of Independence this amalgamated village was the only mixed Arab-Jewish village in Mandatory Palestine. The co-existence of Arabs and Jews was, on the whole, peaceful, though the village was attacked by Arab forces in the 1936–39 Arab Revolt, and again during the 1948 war.

After the establishment of the State of Israel, Ness Ziona's population almost tripled. Families from Iran, Morocco, Yemen and Iraq moved in in the 1950s and 60s, living in ma'abarot (immigrant and refugee absorption camps ) at the edge of town until they could afford to buy something of their own. Today the city's population is still relatively small - around 50,000 - with an annual growth rate of two percent.

Ness Ziona's story is a story of hardship and poverty, famine and disease, but also of great love for the Land of Israel, a story of the establishment and development of the beekeeping industry in the town, the first of its kind in Palestine, and the story of how the national flag was raised for the first time in the town.

* This post has been shared on Little Things Thursday, Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday), Our World Tuesday, Tuesday's Treasures and My Corner of the World.