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246 Agrricultural Colonies

TIIK

(Palestine;

JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

246

and iniplements and plai'<(l uiion some of the farms abandoned by the oriirinal colonists at llirsch. In

Gaza on farms, where they cultivated the vine and raised cereals (see his yoD 3n3D. " I.etlerof Tnivels." ed. by M. l.nnc z. Jeriisjdem, 1S,S3). AViien, at the close of the sixteenth Early History, century, Joseph Nasi, duke of Naxos, began to rebuild the cily of Tiberias, "where only Jews were to dwell," he idanled nuilberry-trees to encourage the inhabitants in the breed-

1900 they were said to" be thriving. One of the mistakes that the Jewish farmers of Canada have made has lieen the ])urcliase of expensive farming implements on the instalment plan. The rate of interest on deferred jiayments often as liii,'h as 13 per cent iter amium iaus<'S them to run into debt, and they seldom succeed in exJlixed fanning is generally tricating themselves.

Jos<>pliof Tniiii. in his responsa (Venice, IGJ!*, i, §46). relates that tlnNjewsof I'aUstine devoted tluni-selves at that time to such agricultural ]iursuits as cultivating cotton, growing cereals, raising vegetables, jtlanting mulberry-trees, breeding silkworms, and apiculture. These records show merely that agriculture was

bcni'volciit people of Chicago; but their fiirnis for ii yeiir, they found that they were uniil)le to niiike a livinir. and petitioned the coloni/.ation eonunittee at Montreal to remove theni to Ilirseh. Tlu'ir recpiest wasf;rant<'d and in the autumn of is'.l") they were iriveu cattle

assisted

in

hy snnio

lifter reiiiiiiniiig

upon



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l.L.NLU.lL

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VIEW OF THE ElSUO.x (From a

advised; and where this system is adopted success All the settlements are suited to usually follows. this kind of farming, since they embrace good gnizing-land, as well as good soil for both grain and root crops. Hay grows in abundance and the land is M. U. not subject to early frosts.

AGRICULTURAL COLONIES IN PALES-

TINE

ing

Since the dispersion of the Jews from their native laud, many etTorts have been made to induce them to return to Palestine and engage in agriculture. Probably the first of these to lead to any practical result occurred in the nineteenth century; though in the travels of Benjamin of Tudela. and of Petahyah of Katisbon, there are records of small settlements of Jews in the Holy Land dating as far back as 1170. Three centuries later Meshullam ben Jlenahcm Volterra, of Florence, while traveling through Palestine (1481), found sixty Jewish families

Of silkworms,

llis

contemporary, Moses ben

_.....;

photogr&pti.)

pursued, perhaps intermittently, by Jews in Palestine for several centuries; but they do not point directly to the founding of Agricultural Colonies as such.

"

For the establisjmicnt of these one must look

to comparatively modern times. That Sir Moses Montetiore long cherished the idea of establishing Agricultural Colonies in the On each of his seven III ily Land is well known. visits



Sir

there,

Moses and thought

he devoted much lime to the subject, i)articu-

Montefiore. larly with reference to the

i)rolilein

of securing protection for the lives and property of any future colonists. Besides interviewing Boghuz"Bey in 1838 (" Diaries," i. 199). on his second visit to Palestine, he held conferences with Israel Drucker (who had a farm at Djermek) On his fourth visit to the and other landowners. East, in 1854. he was received by the sultan and

had an interview with the British" Ambassador,

Sir