The idea for a national fund to finance land acquisition in Eretz Yisrael, which predates the Zionist movement itself, was first proposed by Rav Judah Ben Solomon Chai Alkalai (1798-1878), who was the first modern halachicist and respected rabbinical authority to embrace a mass return by the Jewish people to Eretz Yisrael as not only consistent with halacha, but actually mandated by halacha. His belief that Jewish redemption lies in the hands of the Jews themselves, and his introduction of a natural volunteerism factor into the yearnings of the Jewish nation for redemption, was a radical concept in its time, arousing fierce opposition in charedi rabbinic circles. He was also a strong critic of the German Reform movement, which omitted references to Zion and Jerusalem from its prayers, and he opposed Jewish immigration to anywhere but Eretz Yisrael. Though his efforts brought few concrete results, he laid important groundwork for modern religious Zionism.
In his first Ladino book, Darchei Noam (1839), Rav Alkalai took on traditional religious interpretations and he manifested a revolutionary approach toward redemption: although teshuva is customarily interpreted as “repentance,” or a return to G-d, he literally interpreted it as a “return to the land” as a conditional precedent to the ultimate redemption. In the wake of the Damascus Affair in 1840, he began admonishing Jews that the Affair was part of a divine plan to awaken Jews about their condition in exile.
Over a century before the Holocaust, Rav Alkalai predicted that 1940 would be “a year of great hardship with an outpouring of wrath that will lead to the gathering of our dispersed in Eretz Yisrael” and urged Jews to make aliyah voluntarily before this catastrophic event forced them to settle in Eretz Yisrael. More than half a century before Herzl, he published several pamphlets in which he clearly and skillfully explained to the masses that the settlement of Eretz Yisrael was the primary solution to the Jewish problem in Europe.
About sixty years before the JNF was established, Rav Alkalai sought to facilitate aliyah by calling for the introduction of a communal tithe to finance settlement, to achieve international recognition of a Jewish State, to restore the assembly of elders as a Jewish Knesset, to revive Hebrew as a spoken language, to promote Jewish agriculture, and to develop a Jewish army. His plan called for the creation of a representative “Assembly of Jewish Notables” that would advocate the case of a Jewish return Eretz Yisrael and for the settlement of the land using funds collected from Jewish communities in the form of a ma’aser (ten-percent tithe). In Minchat Yehudah, he proposed the recovery of land of Israel by purchasing it, much as Abraham did when he purchased the cave and field of the Mearat HaMachpela, as described in detail in Genesis 23.
Over and above his impressive literary output promoting financing the settlement of Eretz Yisrael, R. Alkalai toured Western Europe in 1851-1852, including a trip to Great Britain, to spread his message among local communities. Most radically, he opposed an 1860s plan to erect battei medrash (Jewish study halls) in Jerusalem, arguing that, while such edifices are only temporary, agricultural settlement would prove to be of permanent value. He met with little success in his efforts to promote aliyah due, in no small part, to the passionate opposition by charedi rabbis, who characterized his ideas regarding Jewish acts facilitating the arrival of the long-awaited Messiah as heretical. (In this regard, things have hardly changed in two hundred years). In 1871, he finally left his congregation at Semlin and made aliyah to Eretz Yisrael, where he created a new organization, a society for settlement. It, too, failed, but his greatest legacy is that many of his ideas were later adopted by the JNF and by the Zionist movement in general.
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Bottom: December 25, 1953 Israel cover commemorating the reburial of Schapira’s remains in Israel.
Zvi Hermann Schapira is best known for the two important innovations which he presented to the First Zionist Congress in 1897. Although his first suggestion – that a “general Jewish fund” be created to which the whole of world Jewry, rich and poor, would contribute and which would be used to purchase, maintain, and cultivate land in Eretz Yisrael – had broad appeal, it was not adopted until four years later at the Fifth Congress (1901), when the Jewish National Fund was founded. His second proposal – the establishment of a Jewish University in Eretz Yisrael – was ultimately approved by the Eleventh Zionist Congress.
Born in Lithuania, Schapira (1840-1898) became rabbi and rosh yeshiva there before moving to Kovno (1866), where he began his scientific and linguistic studies and, after engaging unsuccessfully in various trades, he went to Heidelberg, Germany, to study mathematics. Becoming accomplished in the field, he was appointed associate professor of higher mathematics at Heidelberg University and published a well-known mathematical work Mishnat Ha-Midot (“The Study of Measures”).
Schapira joined the Chibbat Tzion movement after the 1881 Russian pogroms and published articles in Ha-Melitz (1882) calling for the establishment of agricultural settlements in Eretz Yisrael and the founding of a Jewish university with departments for both training rabbis and secular teachers. While the courses would be taught in German, the use of Hebrew would be emphasized so that “in the course of time, Hebrew might be reborn as a spoken language.” One of the founders of Chovevei Tzion in Odessa, which became the international center of all Chovevei Tzion societies around the world, Schapira also founded the Zion Society for the Settlement of Eretz Yisrael in Heidelberg (1884). The failure of the Chibbat Tzion movement to awaken a widespread Jewish national movement or to initiate large-scale settlement of Eretz Yisrael caused him to despair and to withdraw temporarily from public activities.
Schapira’s position at Heidelberg University was insecure and he felt isolated from even his Jewish colleagues, the majority of whom were assimilated or converted. Nonetheless, he fully embraced a religious philosophy and way of life, which he adhered to all his life. In Mi-Mizrach Umi Maarav, he published two articles in which he sought to synthesize modern science with traditional Judaism (1894).
A group of Zionist students at Heidelberg aroused him to renewed activity and he became an enthusiastic supporter of Herzl, attending the first and several subsequent Zionist Congresses. Schapira regularly corresponded with Herzl, devoted his final years to the dissemination of the Zionist idea among German Jewry, and became active in several Zionist student groups. His remains were interred on Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem.
At the Fifth Zionist Congress in Basil, Switzerland (1901), the convened delegates established the Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael (aka, the Jewish National Fund) as a wholly owned subsidiary of the World Zionist Organization to act as purchaser of lands that would be the “perpetual property of the Jewish people.” On the fourth day of the Congress, the delegates debated Schapira’s original proposal for the establishment of a national fund to purchase land in Ottoman controlled Eretz Yisrael, and it was Herzl himself who won the day when he stood before the delegates and passionately advocated for the immediate establishment of the fund. JNF’s first mission was to raise £200,000; one of the delegates immediately pledged £10 in memory of Schapira, and. Herzl jumped in with the second donation.
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One month after the fund was established, Johann (Yona) Kremenetsky (1850-1934), Herzl’s long-standing aide and a well-known Viennese industrialist, was appointed chairman of the JNF, which was headquartered in Jerusalem. Even prior to his appointment, he viewed the settlement of Eretz Yisrael as of paramount importance, and he himself had acquired land in Petach Tikvah and planted an orchard there.
Kremenetsky left Odessa at an early age for Vienna, where he earned a doctorate in the new field of electrical engineering and pioneered a successful factory for the manufacture of electrical products. An early member of Chibat Zion in Vienna, he was one of the first people to whom Herzl proposed his idea for a world Zionist movement. An interesting entry in Herzl’s diary (1896) records three of his proposals originating with Kremenetsky: (1) that a chemical industry be established on the shores of the Dead Sea; (2) that the country be supplied with electricity from hydro-electric plants; and (3) that afforestation be undertaken as part of a broad national endeavor.
Very taken with the JNF idea, Kremenetsky’s first acts as chairman were to establish a head office in Vienna, seek ways to publicize the JNF among Zionists, and make it a popular mass institution to raise funds for the implementation of its aims. Among other brilliant ideas, he initiated, the “Golden Book,” which records special moments in the lives of contributors – paid inscriptions which, to this day, remain a coveted badge of honor throughout the Jewish world. The very first inscription in the Golden Book was by Herzl, and these beautiful books are housed at JNF headquarters in Jerusalem for all to see.
Kremenetsky also adopted the suggestion of a small-town Galician bank-clerk, Chaim Kleinman, who proposed placing a collection box in every Jewish home so that contributions could be made to JNF, which led to the ubiquitous JNF “Blue Boxes,” so recognizable even today. Herzl took one of the first for his study, where it may still be seen in his room on Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl. In the period between the two World Wars, about one million Blue Boxes could be found in Jewish homes throughout the world and, although the money generated in this way for JNF was a relatively small source of its income, the greater significance of the Blue Boxes was in the link of love they forged between Diaspora Jewry and Eretz Yisrael, especially among children.
Kremenetsky also began publishing JNF stamps and labels, the proceeds of which went to JNF; theses stamps, which proved highly collectible, were affixed to both official Zionist documents and personal and business letters. A JNF stamp served as legal tender when, in 1909, the Petach Tikvah post office won permission from the Austrian government to issue a JNF stamp for the Austrian postal service (1909), and the revenue from the sale of these stamps was split between the JNF and the Petach Tikvah municipality. However, its circulation lasted only a year, after which the Turkish authorities learned about the arrangement and put an end to it. JNF stamps were later used as the official postage of the nascent State of Israel in 1948, before the first official Israel stamps were issued.
In this historic April 29, 1932 correspondence written on his personal letterhead from Vienna to Menachem Ussishkin (c/o the Zionist Executive in Eretz Yisrael), Kremenetsky writes:
Today I feel compelled to write to you in more detail about my previous work for the National Fund and also to explain to you the reasons that lead me to take this step.
On the occasion of my last presence in Palestine, I showed you a circular from 1893, from which you can see – which, by the way, should not be unknown to you – that I had been involved in my work for the NF long before the 5th Congress have.
If Prof. Schapira dedicated his idea to our cause, I was the true founder, because it was I who fought tenaciously and bitterly until the 5th Congress so that the NF [National Funds, i.e., the JNF] would be brought into the form that it still has today and for all times will have validity. I probably don’t need to tell you how my proposal was accepted at the 5th Congress, since you yourself were present.
It was only on the occasion of the 5th Congress that my proposal was accepted. Long before, I had to be content with “donations for Zionist purposes” because there was a fear that the creation of the NF would reduce donations for “Zionist purposes.” This is where my intensive work began.
To make the NF popular, I had to set a good example and from old magazines of the “[Die] Welt” you will see how many drawings came from me: for mother, Herzl’s wife and children, for a large number of rabbis, which I among all circumstances I wanted to win for the NF and I spared no effort to get them to do drawings, even if I had to pay for them myself!
Although I’m reluctant to do so, I must mention this time that I not only paid the rent for the NF’s office, but that I also paid the civil servants, not to mention the many other expenses for the office. The writing materials, the designs for the books and the golden book, the stamps, in short, I paid for all of this out of my own pocket as long as I was active as director. Understandably, I never allowed myself to be replaced by the various trips to London that led to the founding of the bank. All telegrams and other expenses were paid by me; I never used a single farthing of the “donations” for them.
You may not know that it was I who provided the first 5,000 to Weizmann and 5,000 to Oppenheimer for study purposes in Palestine. I have made tremendous material sacrifices for Palestine. It is known that I lost around 10,000 on silicate alone, 50,000 on Migdal and much more. One thing is certain: wherever money was needed, I was remembered.
And despite everything, I didn’t give up my work for the NF. To be able to transfer all the donations from the Vienna office to Palestine, I am providing the office with S 1000 per month. Regarding donations to Jews, Gymnasiums, the Hebrew teachers’ seminar, etc. etc., I don’t want to talk any further.
I lead a notoriously modest life; I myself am undemanding and modest; but today my children reproach me for this great modesty because they say: “You have not received the slightest recognition for your lifelong willingness to sacrifice.” And I must admit, that’s actually not wrong at all. While Prof. Schapira is celebrated as the creator of the NF by the current management of the NF, they do not find it worth the effort to also commemorate my achievements. The idea is certainly the animating element, but there must also be forces at work to sustain the kindled life. And I can boast that I have given these powers to the NF. In addition to my work, the National Fund was my life’s work. [Emphasis added.] I can say that with pride. And if this is not sufficiently appreciated today, perhaps one day later one will realize that my name can at least assert itself as worthily and deserves the same recognition as that of Professor Schapira.
Mr. Hooofien recently wrote to me, among other things, that: “You are one of those pioneers among the Zionists who did not set out to make money, but were prepared to make sacrifices of a material nature.
Not even the reset granted to me prevents me – notwithstanding my 82 years – from continuing to work for the NF. I have prepared a brochure that some friends in Palestine have already read, and I intend to go public with this to win new supporters for the NF. I am currently busy with a job for the local government and as soon as this is completed, I intend to tackle the NF matter.
We must continue on our way undeterred, and ever further: buying land, cultivating it, creating job opportunities and bringing people into the country – of course you know that as well as I do and that’s why I want to end my writing today.
With best regards, your devoted one
For sixty years, no Zionist or Jewish National activity took place in which Ussishkin (1863-1941) did not play an important role. A lifelong and staunch supporter of the Zionist Movement in general and the Hebrew language in particular, he is perhaps best known for publishing Our Program, which laid out his “five-point program” for Zionism, which thereafter dominated the Zionist Movement: political action, acquisition of land, aliyah, settlement, and educational and organizational work. Our Program became the platform for practical Zionism, which gave rise to the Second Aliyah.
At the 13th Zionist Congress in Karlsbad (1923), he was chosen to head the JNF, a position he retained for twenty years. He increased JNF landed property from 22,000 to 561,000 dunam and, as head of the Zionist Executive – in which capacity he received the Kremenetsky correspondence exhibited here – he guided the Yishuv toward the materialization of the Jewish national homeland.
Eliezer Hoofien (1881-1957) – who Kremenetsky proudly cites as someone who appreciates his selfless contributions to the JNF (presumably in marked contrast to Ussishkin and other JNF leadership) – was a Dutch-born accountant and Israeli banker best known for his role in directing the financial affairs of the Yishuv and for establishing Israel’s monetary system when it became a state. He served as director general, of the Anglo-Palestine Bank (which later became Bank Leumi), in which capacity he played a leading role in financing agricultural projects, small start-up businesses, and land purchases in Eretz Yisrael.
One of his significant accomplishments with the bank was financing the development of the young Jewish-controlled Tel Aviv port in the mid-1930s, which was built at a time when Arab-Jewish clashes led to worker protests which effectively ended Jewish access to the port. On August 16, 1948, PM Ben Gurion executed an agreement with Hoofien, appointing the bank as Israel’s financial agent and allowing it to issue Anglo-Palestine Bank notes, which served as Israel’s official currency until the foundation of the Bank of Israel (1954).
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In the spring of 1903, the JNF purchased its first parcel of land: 200 dunams (about 50 acres) east of Hadera with funds given as a gift by the well-known philanthropist Isaac (Yitzhak) Leib Goldberg, who would later acquire the land upon which to build the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. By 1905, the JNF’s holdings had expanded to include land near the Sea of Galilee and at Ben Shemen in the center of the country but, although it focused its early efforts on land acquisition, including acquiring land for the first kibbutzim, its activities expanded quickly to include other areas. For example, beginning a new venture, it purchased land in the center of the country at Hulda to plant olive groves in memory of Herzl, thus launching its forestation program. In 1904, it launched its work in research and development by financing the expenses of various Jewish scientists; it played a leading role in establishing Tel Aviv (1909) as the first modern Jewish city; it established and administered farms; and it was instrumental in founding secondary schools and pioneering higher education.
It was also during this period that the JNF established an experimental agricultural station at Ben Shemen under the direction of Yitzhak Wilkansky (he later changed his name to Yitzchak Volcani), whose work in mixed farming, or crop diversification, remains the basis of most Israeli agriculture to this day. An agronomist, botanist, and pioneer of agricultural research in Israel, he served as a member of Executive Committee of the Zionist Organization in Eretz Yisrael and as an advisor to the World Zionist Organization. He also founded the renowned Volcani Center of Agricultural Research, and joined the faculty at Hebrew University.
In July 1920, when representatives of Zionist organizations from all over the world convened for the first time since the outbreak of World War I, they decided that the land which had been purchased for Jewish settlement belonged to the Jewish people as a whole and that the JNF’s function was to use the funds it raised from Jews worldwide to acquire land which would be allotted to settlers by inheritable leasehold. By 1921, its land purchases had quadrupled, bringing its holdings to 25,000 acres, which doubled by 1927. During the decade of the 1920s, the world Jewish population stood at about 15 million people in 76 different countries, and a determined JNF reached out to every one of these communities, regardless size or distance.
On January 26, 1926, the JNF was incorporated in the United States, where it developed a uniquely American effort to support development in Israel with six action areas, including ecology and afforestation, water, community development, research and development, tourism and recreation, and education. By 1927, JNF purchases totaled 50,000 acres of land on which fifty communities stood and, a year later, planting began for Balfour Forest near Kibbutz Ginegar, and Mishmar HaEmek Forest.
By 1935, the JNF had planted 1.7 million trees over a total area of 1,750 acres and, throughout this period, it continued to reclaim land for agricultural purposes and drain swamps like those in the Hula Valley. By the end of 1935, the JNF held 89,500 acres of land on which stood 108 communities with most of the land located in the center of the country and in the valley regions.
Finally, beginning in the early 1920s, the JNF issued beautiful pocket calendars (“Luach”) which present a unique window into JNF activities in Eretz Yisrael, including particularly the history of the development and purchase of lands there. Exhibited here are excerpts from a few such calendars from my collection.
According to the map listed in the 1924-25 JNF Luach, exhibited here, the JNF held a total of 106,973 dunams of land (equivalent to 27,175 acres and 42.5 square miles). There were 16,875,000 Jews worldwide, led by Poland’s 4.5 million Jews (most of whom would be murdered in the Holocaust), followed by 3.8 million in the United States and 3.1 million in Russia. That year, there were only 90,000 Jews in Eretz Yisrael.
By 1934-35, as the JNF Luach exhibited here shows, the JNF had purchased some 533,400 dunam (equivalent to almost 132,000 acres and 206 square miles). However, the rate of increase of Jews making aliyah was far greater than the growth rate of land acquisition, to the point that the JNF proclaimed that progress was “hanging by a thread.” In 1939, despite the severe restrictions imposed on Jewish immigration by the British mandate authorities, there were 450,000 Jews in the country, 10% of whom lived on JNF land and, by 1942-43, the JNF had acquired 600,000 dunam (148,263 acres, or about 232 square miles).
