Labour Zionism Tiyul - Caleb Ernst

       On Monday, April twenty third, Kitat Keshet, and all the Jewish History classes took a two hour bus ride to the north of Israel near the Kinneret. Up to this point we had been learning about all the horrible things in Europe that happened to the Jews, such as the pogroms in Russia, that would force the Jews to leave where they were living and explore other options. Many of these Jews left Europe and moved to America, seeking a better life with more economic opportunities and religious freedoms, but some of the more ideological Jews decided to try to return to our homeland, Israel. Our tiyul would help teach us about these early Zionists, called labour Zionists, by taking us to the places that they actually settled. This group of Zionists was categorized by the belief that the best way to create a Jewish homeland in ארץ ישראל was to physically work the land themselves. They were categorized by  two groups, first and second wave aliyahs.

     

 At our first location we learned about Labour Zionism as a whole but focused more on First Wave Aliayhs. Here we were shown a video that was designed to depict the struggle the first group of  Jews faced when moving to Israel. We learned about all the work they had to do in order to make the land farm-able in the first place. The movie also showed all the other struggles the Jews faced. The Jews had to pay a ten percent tax a Jewish organization and to the Turks who governed the land. They also had to pay a guard to watch and make sure that no one stole from them or attacked them. On top of all this the Jews had to deal with diseases and figuring out how to run there own society with things like education and eventually their own defense. After the movie we were shown a replica house a model of what a home back in the early 20th century would have looked like, complete with slightly creepy life size human figurines. Finally we got the pleasure of having a professor who one the Israel prize speak to us. He drilled into our brains that these people came to Israel because of ideology, ideology, ideology. He also taught us that this wave of aliyah was from 1882-1903 as well as some other important dates like 1897 was the first Zionist Organization, 1948 was when Israel was created, and 1967 was the 6 day war. Along with this he told us that the first wave consisted of about 25000 Jews, most of whom were middle class workers who had never farmed a day in their life. Because of them not being able to adjust to the farming life style, as well as all the other struggles, about half of these Jews would end up leaving Israel. 

       after a short bus ride and a stop for lunch we arrived at our second location. Here we learned about the second wave of aliyah and the very first kibbutz. In this wave, which lasted from 1904-1914, David Ben Gorian came to Israel, he believed that settling the

land was the only way to get our own state.We watched another short video that showed what life on the first kibbutz, kibbutz degandya, founded in 1909, was like. We learned that the kibbutz was founded with very socialist ideals and consisted mostly of young Jews who were much more ready to farm the land. We also learned about some important women figures, such as Hannah meisel who was an important leader for the first kibbutz. 

     

     One last short bus ride later we arrived at our last destination, the cemetery for the first kibbutz, which is still active to this day. The first thing that hit me when we got there is how beautiful the place was. From the cemetery you could see the Kinneret and it was amazing how beautiful this place full of death was, it perfectly showed how in Judaism death is really a celebration of life. there we learned about

some of the lives and eventual deaths of people who helped to found our country, one man killed himself cause of how hard life was, another was the story of the first child born there and how he only was able to live for 5 months cause of how little infrastructure there was. finally to end out the day, Evan told his Aliyah story and what drove him to coming to this country that me and so many of my classmates have grown to love.

      On our long bus ride back to the kibbutz I thought about how hard it must have been to come to Israel in these early days, and how tempting it must have been to just go to america instead, I do not know if I could have done it. So I will pose the same question to you as I asked myself, if you were leaving Europe and had to choose between America or Israel, would you have moved to Israel or America?