CHAPTER 6 - Our Town, Aron’s Plans and Many Obstacles

Sara Outside the Aronson Home

‘Our chronology shifts to the years before Aron's first American Trip. As a young man, Aron had already been away for four long years as a youth.

Aron During his Studies in Grignon, France

He had studied first in France - the Baron had noticed him as a precocious thirteen-year-old and  four years later, when he was seventeen, sponsored him to go to a prestigious agricultural school in Grignon near Paris. The idea being to train bright, young men from the area, as farming instructors and then in return for paying for their instruction, travel and lodging, have them return to instruct other young people in the colony. To be sure, there were the Baron’s French instructors, including those who had been sent out from the North African colonies - but no-one liked their haughtiness or sense of superiority. Chief among them was the Baron's main Agent, appointed as overseer and treasurer of the colony. On his return, Aron was sent to work in the Baron's Clerks Company, for the next two years. 

Aron Back Row Second Right with the Baron's Clerks & their Families, c 1890

At first, he bit his tongue when treated as if he were a novice, sealed his lips at any insult, in the hope that after he had received enough training and gained enough experience, he would be able to go out in the world on his own. He was sent to Metula, a rough place in the hills of Galilee, clearing rocks and lugging soil, a task he found both demeaning and not worthy of his training. Aron soon realised that the Baron’s staff were corrupt and that the Baron was being cheated. Land promised, never materialised, flour mills were in a state of poor repair, the Druze from whom the land had been bought were not paid its worth. When Aron requested money for planting olives it was refused and he soon clashed directly with the Baron’s Agent who accused Aron of sedition and other misdemeanours. Aron considered the official, arrogant and petty and when he insisted that the newly trained teachers should toe the line and remain subservient at all times, to the official régime of French-inspired bureaucratic norms, Aron rebelled.

Aron in his Twenties

He wrote directly to the Baron with his complaints and received the following letter back accusing him of lying and exaggeration: ‘Your letters are most ridiculous! A youngster just out of school who poses as a reformer and big chief... At your age one should be more modest.’

Aron blamed the fracas on both the Baron’s high handedness and ‘the falseness of his empowered appointees’ and he had the audacity to write back: ‘I would be dishonest, a liar and despicable if I did not warn my noble protector that at Metula and the Upper Galilee there exists a gang of official, wonderfully organised to deceive you and abuse your trust.’

Words, not exactly conducive to a good working relationship. Perhaps Aron had overstepped the mark?

The Baron wrote a final warning: ‘If you do not toe the line you will have to go back to your father and work in his vineyard.’

Aron did indeed return home - but not to the the vineyard - and immediately tendered his resignation from the Baron’s employ.

The father despairs of his son. He has such high hopes for him and cannot bear to see them dashed by Aron’s hot headedness. Try to get on with them, the old man says. How are ever going to get on in life, if you quarrel with everybody?! 

Aron spent two futile years working in Anatolia for another Baron - Baron Hirsch, the great philanthropist and land owner. This too, ended badly. Aron was restless and homesick and decided to return home not at all certain what was next and forced to rely on his father for funds. An unsatisfactory situation all round.

Fortunately a chance came out of the blue and  Aron was asked to participate in a geological expedition of the Dead Sea, led by Professor Max Blanckenhorn, before accompanying his friend, German Professor Otto Warburg in a botanical exploration of Palestine. An expedition that furnished him with much material for his maps but did not offer him any future employment.

By now both father and son were thoroughly fed up with the situation and each other, and Aron offered his services to the Jewish Colonial Association, which in the interim and at Baron Rothschild’s invitation had taken over the running of the Baron’s many projects, though retaining many of the same officials. In this he was turned down, accused by those same bureaucrats of belligerence in his former operations at Metula.

A few disparate years followed: a business venture with a German importer of agricultural machinery ended in litigation, another with a Jewish one, also ended badly. Aron continued to consult for other organisations but his many plans and ideas were bluntly turned away by the Baron’s officials who sought to bring Aron down a peg or two, at every juncture and by every means possible. The troubles that followed may have resulted from the clash of personalities, as well as the perception that Aron ‘had changed’, got too big for his boots, as some would have said. Our town was like many small places, a hotbed of jealousy and small-mindedness and Aron, well, Aron with his dreams and his ideals, his many languages - already stated: Yiddish, Hebrew, English, Arabic, Turkish, French, German and even a little Latin - for his beloved botanical labelling - he stepped directly into a minefield of bitter rivalry for scarce resources and bitter divergent ideologies. His enemies were many - the Turks were wary and suspicious, our own leaders were afraid of him, the townsfolk suspected him and distrusted his motives from the start, fearing his ideas would endanger our very existence - and all this against a background of slothfulness and conniving corruption of the Ottoman Officials who controlled our every action and who filled our every moment with reams of convoluted forms to fill in - which put even Monsieur the Baron’s Agent to shame - regarding even a request to dig a well or own a field.

The numerous obstacles put in his way would have stopped any other man in his tracks - but then Aron wasn’t any other man...  

Aron in his Many Guises

Agronomist, geologist, botanist, cartographer, political activist, his changing portraits reveal: a pugnacious youngster in worker’s cap, a jack the lad in checked bow-tie, a determined sailor on a British ship, a man of the soil not afraid to dirty his hands, a besuited winner of many prizes and the most famous of them all, a granite-faced profile as statesman and leader.

The first step on that botanical ladder came with an interaction between him and French trained botanist Rahel Yaffe, sister of that eminent physician Dr. Hillel Yaffe of whom we have much more to hear. Rahel was an inspiration to Aron, a few years his senior, she took him on long ‘tiyulim’ in the Galilee and taught him to identify and collect plant specimens. It was at this time that Aron’s thoughts turned from agricultural matters to botanical ones. It was Rahel’s encouragement that led to this change of heart and she begged him to follow that path. It might be added that the lady in question had perhaps other more personal motives. It appeared that she had a crush on her companion - one certainly not returned by Aron - and her rejection was seen as an insult by Dr. Yaffe and his wife. This perhaps explains some of the antipathy between our hero and the good doctor in the years to come.

But now, back to the present day, at least the present day in the chronicle of this narrative, a date some time before the building of the much anticipated Agricultural Research Station...’

  ****

Zikhron Ya'akov c1900

The main street in the little town, Farmers Street, later to be named ‘The Founders Street’ - Rehov Hameyasdim, is filled with the transport of the day - carts, bicycles, donkeys and horses.  By the 1890’s, there is already a fire station, a winery, a large reservoir, a small lodging place, later a hotel, a water tower, many stores and shops, and even an orchestra in the town.

The Fire Station Zikhron Ya'akov c. 1890

The Winery Zikhron Ya'acov

The Reservoir Zikhron Ya'acov

General Store Zikhron Ya'acov 1890's

The Town Orchestra Zikhron Ya'acov 1890's

With Baron Edmond James de Rothschild's help, the colony has been planted with mulberry, olive and palm trees as well as an ‘unspecified number of grapevines’.

Ran Aaronsohn's ‘Rothschild and Early Jewish Colonisation in Palestine’

So reports Ran Aaronsohn, great nephew of Aron, in ‘Rothschild and Early Jewish Colonization in Palestine’.

Townspeople Outside the Baron’s Administration Building

In the centre of town a large, handsome building, houses the Baron’s clerks and the colony’s administration.

The Benjamin Pool

And at the end of the moshava, the Benjamin Pool, a water reservoir and specially designed drinking fountain - gifted by the Baron. A water pump driven by a twelve-horsepower steam engine brought water up from the well below, through underground pipes and carried that precious liquid to the top of the hill on which the town sat. The Benjamin Pool is still there but in need of some renovation. Here, the Aronson girls could be found walking with their parasols when out on errands - blessed circles of shade in that uncomfortable Middle Eastern heat, a quick, cool mouthful of water or a splash to a perspiring brow, for the ‘Founders’ and their families.

The ‘Founders’ of course, included both the Aronson and the Feinberg families. The Feinbergs as we have learned ended up in Rishon le-Zion, while the Aronson’s put down roots in Zikhron. There was some rivalry between the two colonies - but all considered, Zikhron was the prettier place. 

Red-Shingled Buildings, Main Street

With its shallow hill, bordered with trees, red-shingled buildings, Edwardian gas-lighting, small shops, a hotel and cinema, cafés and synagogue - Ohel Ya'akov, named after the Baron’s father and completed in 1886 -  Zikhron, was a delightful, little piece of Europe in the Levant.

The Synagogue, Ohel Ya'akov built in 1896

     ****

Aron and Sara ride their bicycles up the cobbled street. Sara’s skirts bundled beneath her tall figure, a glimpse of petticoat and stray strands of hair flying in the wind, narrow ankles peddling. Aron gesticulating into the blue coastal distance as he elucidates his plan to Sara.

    “Over there, at Atlit, we’ll establish our Station, if they’ll only let us.”

At the bottom of the hill, a Turkish Army Post with Guard, they stop, almost colliding with two town’s woman crossing the street, and leave their bicycles against a wall.
 
The two women, exchange a disapproving glance. Sara notices their look but Aron is still passionately expounding his plans for the future. The women glare as Sara and Aron hurry up the street to their destination - the Turkish Militia offices.

The offices are closed. A badly spelled sign hangs on the dirty window: ‘His Imperiel Majesty the Sultan’s Oriffice has moved to Haifa’

A Turkish Soldier shakes his head at a frustrated Aron and Sara.

****

The next morning Aron and Sara, set off for the location at Atlit where Aron plans to build his new  research station.

We view the arid coast at the foot of Mount Carmel, as if by drone shot - or as the citizens of the time, would have called it ‘bird’s eye view’ and indeed there are always hawk-eyed eagles, swooping and floating up in the thermals, looking for prey. The sea is wild, sand dunes and salt marsh alternate to make an inhospitable landscape. A massive ruin of a Crusader Castle looms above the rocky coast, below is the heavily pitted coastline, constantly eroded by the rough surf, of the Mediterranean Sea, the circumference of the little piece of earth where all Sara and Aron's dramas and dreams took place.

Château Pèlerin Ruins at Atlit

The castle, or should one say its ruins, was a fortress, known variously as Castrum Peregrinorum or Château Pèlerin. The Knights Templar began building the fort in the thirteenth century, during the Fifth Crusade to reinforce their hold along the coastline. One of the major Crusader fortresses in the land, it could support up to four thousand troops in siege conditions. It survived for hundreds of years, until nature threw a tantrum and damaged the old fort with a rather large earthquake. Today, the site is part of an Israeli Navy base and as such is forbidden to civilians. From a viewing point, which will become a British Mandatory prison, Sara can see the salt marshes, which will one day become fish ponds, a blue-green jigsaw puzzle, filled with flamingos and other migrating birds, coming or going, from their Rift Valley migration in Africa. It is here, come hell or high water  that Aron will set up his new research station, recruiting labour, clearing the cliff top and continuing his life-long passion - the study of his regions’ flora.

   ****

Haifa Bay with the German Colony

But first, a number of issues must be solved. The issue, as ever, a question of land, permissions and money. They would have had to make the trip to Haifa - a small port town of mixed Jewish and Muslim population. Aron could not get his head round the fact that in Turkish occupied Palestine everything had to be referred back to Turkey - and Turkey was a corrupt and dying monster with a byzantine bureaucracy based on bribery and brutality, that had been the undoing of many a lesser man. But Aron had already had much experience of the Turks and of Haifa. Following the failure of his work at Metula, he had as we have heard, partnered with a German Templar - a member of a pacifist Christian community who set up a colony in Haifa, a city of about four thousand people - Jews, Arabs, Turks and  Templars. The colonists built a main street much admired by the locals and which formed the template for Sara and Aron’s little town. Planted with mulberry trees on both sides, houses built with stone, with red-tiled roofs. The harsh climate, malaria and other epidemics claimed the lives of many before the colony became self-sustaining. It was here that Aron and his German friend, with the unlikely name, Richard Dick, opened an agricultural warehouse selling fertiliser, reapers, harvesters, mechanical harrows, petrol-operated pumps to drain the swamps, a centrifuge imported from Germany for the making of cream and butter and most importantly to Aron, the import of many varieties of seeds and carefully nurtured, grape vines from Italy.

The business as we have understood, would soon collapse, a fall-out with his ‘pacifist’ friend,  who turned out to be very aggressive, considered by Aron to be ‘traitorous’ - much later the remaining Templars would turn from passive support of the Jews to feature a few Nazis in their diminishing number. The break up had left Aron almost penniless as we have read, unwillingly dependent on the largesse of his family. These were black years for Aron, turbulent days but ones spent planning the future of the Zionist colony.

 ****

Turkish Administration Offices, Haifa

The offices of the Turkish local administration in Haifa. A rainy day. Black clouds tumble against the sky. Brother and sister outside a building in Ottoman style of crenelated stone with a sign ‘Turkish Administration Office, Palestine’. Aron carries a briefcase of plans, maps and figures. There is mud everywhere, fly-encrusted beggars, the lame and the destitute, beg for alms in the puddles and dirt. A cart rumbles by with soldiers of the Turkish Militia, splashing dark mud on Sara’s skirt. A dead cat lies in the street, buzzing with flies. Sara gingerly steps over the fast decaying feline. Aron raps sharply on the door. A slovenly guard opens slowly and minutely peruses the letter Aron proffers.

Inside the offices, a desk piled with dishevelled, manilla folders, half-full tea-glasses, half-eaten food. More flies. Behind the desk, the slovenly mustachioed figure of Captain Aziz, an expression of implacable boredom, on his face as he regards Aron’s plans.

    “It will be necessary first to petition Istanbul,” the Sultan’s servant says. “However the Sultan has expressed his dislike of new settlements by your people.”

Aron stands impatiently, hat in hand. Aziz shakes his head and hands Aron’s folder back to him - bureaucracy at its most inefficient and immovable. Then he says with a crooked smile.

    “They call you ‘Mr. Satan’, Mr. Aron, because no one is afraid of you? But even the Devil needs friends. Without baksheesh, you will get nowhere.”           

Aron seething with frustration takes his portfolio of plans and they leave. Sara steps over the dead cat again. Her faces shows not distaste but pity. Abu Farrid waits with a rickety cart and horse to take them back home.

      ****   

Baron Edmond & Jewish Officials with Turkish Fezes

‘The question of land always at the forefront of our story. The land had originally been purchased by the Baron in the 1880‘s to found the new colonies or ‘Moshava’. Rishon-Le-Zion, the first of these, obtained 50,000 francs from the Baron’s good will. On his first visit to Palestine in 1895, after he had visited Petach Tikvah, about which he was very enthusiastic, he gave out that he would not visit Rishon-Le-Zion because too many members of its younger generation had left the country to look for easier opportunity abroad. But being eager to see Rishon with his own eyes, he organised a secret trip to the colony at midnight, with the intention of returning to Jaffa before dawn. The secret was not well kept, and when he entered the colony by a back road at midnight, the entire population - men, women and children - was there to give him a silent but hearty welcome. Over thirty such colonies were founded with his aid. The administration was carried on through the auspices of the Jewish Colonisation Association, but entirely financed by the Baron. Originally called Zamarim by those who lived there, the philanthropic Baron had ordered the renaming of the village where much of our action takes place - Zikhron Ya’akov - ‘In memory of Jacob’ - in honour of his father, James Nathan Rothschild, founder of the French branch of the famous banking family.‘James’ from the Hebrew name Ya'akov, or Jacob. Baron Edmond or simply ‘HaBaron’ as he is known in our part of the world - ‘The Baron’, is a major supporter of Jewish settlement in Palestine - he is greatly aware of the pogroms in Russian and Ukrainian lands - his donations support what becomes known as the First Aliyah. Baron Edmond prefers art to banking and bequeaths thousands of works to the Louvre. However, in 1882 he reduces his purchases of art and begins to buy land in Ottoman Palestine. Although he rejects the political Zionism of Theodor Herzl, the Baron is not fool enough not to see the need for a Jewish homeland - he finances, as stated, first the colony of Rishon-Le-Zion and then our own Zikhron Ya’akov and is also responsible for the early wine industry. Under the supervision of his administrators, including Monsieur le Baron's many Agents, farm colonies are set up, vineyards planted, and wineries opened.

In 1893, when Sara was three years old, Baron Edmond disembarked from his yacht the ‘Atmah’ at Tantura Bay on the Mediterranean coast and proceeded with his entourage like an emperor through his settlements on that desolate coast. The perfectly attired Baron - always with neat, coiffured beard and white hair, and the Baroness in her many skirts, shaded by a large parasol carried by a lady maid, and accompanied by numerous officials, lesser and greater, including the Baron's Agent, were received by a mounted guard - a Jewish guard - as they processed between an avenue of Lebanon cedars onto a just planted, neatly mowed lawn which would not have been out of place in the Tuileries. Here trestle tables piled with jugs of lemonade, oranges and other Holy Land fruit and decorated with palm fronds, welcomed them in the blessed shade where the Baroness was at last, able to sit down. An excited crowd and burgeoning fields pleased the Baron very much. He had, after all, spent considerable time, energy and money in establishing these jewels in his crown.

Baron Edmond & his Officials with Unknown Girl

But it was not a one way traffic; in return for this support, the Baron, as we have heard, asserted his control, total control some would say, and the colonies were forced to agree to be run by administrators appointed by Monsieur de Rothschild himself. This was a double-edged sword, a rose with many thorns. On the good side, the Baron’s officials employed agricultural experts - from France or Jews from North Africa - to guide the colonists who had little or no experience of farming, drought or mosquitoes. Schools - based on the elitist Alliance Francaise Israelite, clinics - practising French medicine and banks - Rothschild Banks - came next. Every loan was perused and approved - or not - by the Baron’s men. They however, also had little or no experience of the dry, unforgiving country and were not always in sympathy with the ideologue Russians or the proud, stubborn Romanians who sought to make a living from those unforgiving fields. Nevertheless, boulders were cleared, swamps were drained, fences erected, borders drawn, villages enclosed. This did not please the local inhabitants. The Baron however was thrilled with the success of his project. He loved the Holy Land only a little less than he loved his art collection. His administration both limited and permitted the settlers goals. All proceeded with the usual unwieldy and unyielding style of French bureaucracy and copious form-filling and lengthy delays.

The Baron and his Officials, were the de facto government of those early years. This, of course did not entirely please the Turks in what would turn out to be the last gasps of that increasingly Sick Man of Europe. It should be mentioned that the documents housed in the archives in Istanbul recorded every move and motive of the Baron and his colonists: thousands of reports, petitions, surveys, population censuses, and title deeds - the later, a particular bone of contention on both sides. Not to mention, records of the many and various loans the Rothschild Bank regularly made to the dying Empire and many flowery, polite - and less polite missives - exchanged between the two parties.

Local Officials complained about the administration’s activity and called upon the Ottoman  government to limit Jewish immigration and settlement for fear of the emergence of a ‘Jewish national problem in Palestine, which would threaten the Empire’s integrity and cause resentment among the local population’. Which clearly, it did and here can be found some of the seeds of the hatred that would gradually consume the country like a great locust swarm. Some got rich on this acrimony - the Baron’s agents were not averse to offering ‘loans’ to those who sought to get in the way of the Baron’s stated ambitions. It was even rumoured that some of the Baron’s men accepted bribes - but I cannot vouch for that slur. Numerous investigations and commissions were opened by the Turks, but those Rothschild loans ensured that nothing ever happened, other than another futile commission of inquiry. There were also the taxes imposed on the colonists which helped fill the direly, empty Ottoman coffers and quieten the Officials in their offices in Damascus, Beirut, Jerusalem and Constantinople/Istanbul. The malaise and lethargy of the former Empire’s endless bureaucracy, unable to agree on any decisions, the foreign status of the colonists and the Baron’s agents who were protected under the rulings known as the ‘capitulations’ which gave the new immigrants protection under foreign consuls - British and French - all helped the Baron’s administration pursue its goals.

One of those administrators, Elie Scheid, who headed the Baron’s men for a time, was in close contact with Ottoman officials. He attempted to persuade them of the many benefits which the Empire would derive from Jewish colonisation and from having loyal subjects in those colonies. The Ottoman correspondence includes the issue of registration of the lands bought near Zikhron Ya’akov. The local Arabs and Bedouins did not like this at all, but the Turks were not overly fond of them anyway - they considered them trouble makers, cattle thieves, primitive wild men, and so they were not unhappy to pass some of the burden of administration to the Baron’s men. And the colonists who had so many issues with which to grapple, including security and attacks on the farms and roads, were grateful for the Baron’s support and the Turks' sullen inaction. The Baron, known also as ‘Hanadiv Hayeduah’ - ‘The noble donator’ a somewhat obsequious honourific it must be admitted, was generous, but not always for the reasons we would have preferred. The townsfolk are grateful but there are those among them who do not trust the Baron...’
 
Just down the road from us, the Baron also funded an ill-fated glass factory to supply bottles for his wineries. Baron Edmond had met Meir Dizengoff in Paris and selected him to run the new factory - ‘Mizaga’, among the first Jewish-owned factories in Ottoman Palestine. Dizengoff - who will, of course, become the first Mayor of that brand new city of Tel Aviv already rising among the sand dunes - opened the factory in Tantura - a run down Arab fishing village a few miles from our town and near the ruins of the ancient Phoenician city of Dor, of which more later...’

****

A carriage approaches the settlement of Zikhron Ya’akov. The wheels turn angrily in the rutted road. One is loose and wobbles furiously. The horses too, have seen better days. 

 

Abu Farrid Carriage Driver

The carriage is driven by Abu Farrid who urges the elderly horses on. Aron, his face set and determined, sits next to Sara who is being thrown about by the bumps as she holds tightly onto Aron’s folder.   

Ottoman Soldiers Cutting Down Trees

The olive coloured landscape streams by as they pass a small grove of trees at a tiny settlement of Jewish farmers where a Turkish overseer with a whip supervises a gang of soldiers chopping down the few remaining trees and beating the settlers who resist this act of wanton destruction.

Aron’s face, as he regards the unjustified devastation, in growing fury.

Sara takes Aron’s arm: “We’ll go to Hassan Bey, he’s sure to help us,” she says placidly.

****

Muftir Hassan Bey’s Garden at Caesarea

Muftir Hassan Bey’s garden in Caesarea, a fine day. An enclosed Arab-style orchard with pond, orange trees and dovecot in which homing pigeons fly in and out. The Muftir Hassan Bey, the Turkish Official in charge of local affairs, a man with a face like malleable putty, in long white gown, sandals and astrakhan fez, delicately sucking the bones of a dismembered chicken. Aron and Sara have brought along gifts, including sweetmeats and tobacco, of which the Muftir is very fond. They wait patiently as coffee is brought by a servant who pours the dark liquid into two brass cups. Sara drinks hers, it is scalding hot, but she finishes it quickly. Finally, Hassan Bey puts down the bones. The servant brings a bowl of water for him to wash his hands and a soft, white towel. Aron spreads out his plans for the new agricultural station at Atlit. His coffee cup still full on the table.

    “Such a research station can only benefit both our peoples. Together we can make the desert bloom. I have all the scientific documentation. Of course we will need money and transport.”

Hassan Bey dries his hands fastidiously, regarding the blueprints for the new station, shakes his head slowly and throws his hands open like a pair of fluttering doves: “I would like to assist you, my friend - like in the old days, but my hands are tied. The Sultan does not believe your people need more land.”

Aron’s face leaves no doubt as to his opinion of the Bey’s words.

    “Perhaps,” says the Muftir opening the little packet of sweets and sampling one, “You should ask your Baron for help?”

Aron impatiently begins to pack up his plans, knocking his cup of coffee over his blueprints in his haste. The Bey mops it up with the soft white towel and continues: “I have, however, a fondness for your father, Mr. Aron, he once saved the life of one of my sons who was accused of stealing cattle from your people. Yes one good deed deserves another. I can help you with transport - two good Arab horses - a mare and a stallion are at your disposal.” He gestures out the window where a servant stands holding the reins of two fine horses, a black one and a white one. 

****

Muftir Hassan Bey Shukri

‘The vacillating Hassan Bey Shukri, as was his full name, was what we considered a ‘good Arab’ although he was actually of Turkish descent and certainly did not turn out to be good for us. The horses were apparently a gift because he had a soft spot for the father, Efraim. A moderate, you might call him with mercurial changes of view and temperament which might be explained by his fondness for hashish and its stronger sister, opium. He was born in Jerusalem and moved to Haifa as a child. The Turks appointed him Mayor of the city in 1914. He would go on to become military Governor of the Jaffa District in that first Great War where the action of our ill-fated narrative takes place and where as the military governor of Jaffa, he persecuted Zionists with zeal and arbitrary arrests.  One such example, among many; Hassan Bey Shukri issued a directive ordering Jewish workers at a flour mill to work on the Sabbath despite their religious beliefs. The workers’ refusal and Hassan Bey’s subsequent punishment of the owner of the flour mill, one Eliyahu Golomb, with ‘falakas’, that is, the humiliating and painful whipping, of said Golomb, was a direct catalyst for Golomb’s formation of the first major organised Jewish self defence organisation in Palestine, the Haganah. But then I am getting ahead of our story. The Haganah was only founded in 1920, during the British Mandate which followed some three years after we were already dead. And in an about turn that still puzzles historians, the fawning Bey in July 1921, sent a telegram to the British government, declaring support for the Balfour Declaration and Zionist immigration to British Mandate Palestine: ‘We strongly protest against the attitude of the said delegation concerning the Zionist question,’ said Hassan Shukri. ‘We do not consider the Jewish people as an enemy whose wish is to crush us. On the contrary. We consider the Jews as a brotherly people sharing our joys and troubles and helping us in the construction of our common country. We are certain that without Jewish immigration and financial assistance there will be no future development of our country as may be judged from the fact that the towns inhabited in part by Jews such as Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, and Tiberias are making steady progress while Nablus, Acre, and Nazareth where no Jews reside are steadily declining.’

Yes indeed. The lines were drawn, there were those who supported us and those whose bitter enmity prevented us from achieving our aims, but there was always the good Arab to blur those lines. And there was always the Baron to bail us out in times of hardship - and to thwart us too in accordance with his strongly held views on what was permitted and what was not - and the whims or power brokering of his minions such as the Baron’s Chief Agent, who you are about to meet in person...’

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Panorama of Old City, Jerusalem

A panoramic view of Jerusalem spread across the valley. The Old City with its mosques, Crusader remnants, Herod’s Temple Wall - The Western or ‘Wailing’ Wall - all that is left of that much mourned Second Temple.

A building of Ottoman grey stone in Jerusalem. A sign reads ‘Agent de Baron Rothschild. Jewish Colonies of Palestine.’

The Baron & his Agents

Aron in three-piece suit, tie and holding his hat is sweating heavily. He addresses the Baron’s Agent, a smooth-looking man with dandified pince nez glasses, slicked-back hair and a heavy Russian accent,  who listens in disdainful silence as Aron propounds his proposal. On the ornate, French bureau Aron’s plans for an Agricultural Research Station, are spread out.  

The Baron's Agent lifts his pince nez with what might be exasperation or disdain: “A research station? And what exactly do you propose to research?”

    “Botany, geology, agriculture, everything that will help us in our new land!” Aron’s passion is evident in every word he says. “My project to find the original wild wheat and grow it commercially. We have the plans, all the figures, financial and scientific. It is my dream to set up an agricultural research station at Atlit - but we will need the Baron’s help”.

The Agent stares at Aron with a lofty and haughty indifference.

    “Local Officials are complaining about your activity and the Constantinople government is attempting to limit Jewish immigration and settlement. Your request plays directly into their hands, Monsieur Aronson.”

Aron reddens, whether in fury or due to the heat, is not clear: “With respect, that’s not right, sir!”

The Agent hands back the papers, not liking this insolent attack on his impartiality: “Our Ottoman masters fear the emergence of Jewish nationalism, which might threaten the Empire’s integrity as well as cause resentment among our simple-minded populace. You understand, I am certain, that this would impact our work and the Baron’s good will. This is not the time for such a request...”

The two men stare at each other in mutual hostility. 

Jerusalem with Donkey

Outside the Agent,’s offices a frustrated Aron hurls his hat into the road where an elderly man on a donkey rides over it, squashing it flat. Sara is waiting against an ancient wall, as Aron curses and picks up the flattened hat. She bursts out laughing, straightens the hat and hands it back to her brother who plonks it back on his head.

    “We’re not going to let a donkey get in the way of our plans,” she says.

****

Map of Palestine c1910

‘Aron began looking for his wheat in earnest, travelling to villages across the country, carefully collecting and recording details of the local varieties, helped by Sara who collated and recorded the samples. He recognised that as more settlers arrived and introduced wheat, such as Durum,  from Europe the traditional grasses he had identified would soon disappear. A loss he could not bear. So the race was on and they set out on a journey that covered the entire region of Ottoman Palestine. A journey that takes them from the Negev Desert to Be’er Sheva, from the rocky coast of Haifa to the Lebanon border. Yes, Aron was convinced as nobody had been before him, that he could make this barren, much fought over land, green again, despite all his detractors. But that’s not all - he was convinced too that he would find the original grain our ancestors ate! He was on a quest, a crazy mad quest for something that might not even exist. In all of this, Sara was at his side. At first, she was not convinced, but slowly as Aron unburdened himself he made Sara his muse, accomplice and aide.  

His task to find the the Lost Ark, the primitive grain that provided for the millennia of inhabitants - Phoenician, Philistine, Roman, Mamluk, Arab, Ottoman; for all have been this way before. And then to set up an agricultural research station in the middle of the desert, in the driest, most arid region where his soon to be famous wheat would grow...’

****

Sara & Aron on Horseback in the Negev

The Negev. A saturated blue sky with ochre-coloured, barren mountains. Aron galloping across the empty desert with Sara on horseback. They stop on a rise overlooking the arid plains near a deserted ruin. Sara regards the huge emptiness: “ It’s so empty. Nothing grows here -”

Aron points at the ruin: “But it once did. People lived here centuries ago. We can make it green again - find water in the desert, fields where there are stones, rebuild the ruins - despite all of them!

He throws out his arms, impassioned: “Nothing’s going to get in our way, my dear sister. Not the Turks, not the locals and certainly not that organ grinder’s monkey, Monsieur the Baron's Agent!”

Sara smiles: “But first, to find that illusive wild wheat, dear brother!”      

 ****

They rode on their horses, one white, one black, through the Jordan Valley, past crystal springs and sandy rivulets, ancient caves, deep gullies and dry valleys, across the hills of Mount Carmel, down to the malaria-ridden coastal swamps. Everyone thought they were crazy. We can imagine Aron searching along the river bank, on hands and knees. Sara at his side, stepping through marsh grass, holding his bag. Aron knee deep in the muddy swamp grass with trowel and cutters, hacking at the dense undergrowth. Sara swatting mosquitoes, but never tiring.

    “Nothing!” he says.
 
He mounts his horse, his face frustrated and dark, turns the horse and gallops on dispirited and angry. Sara spurs on her horse and follows him.

It seemed a fruitless quest. But Sara would not allow Aron to give up. And then the unexpected - a gift from the Baron. Another double-edged sword, a poisoned chalice some would say, but Aron embraced it with open arms.

****

Aron's Library & Study

Aron's Study. Piles of botanical books, papers, maps, graphs, surround Aron. An open page explains that early wheat was first domesticated in the Levant thousands of years ago.
    
    “Those strains can’t just have disappeared! It’s got to be here somewhere,” declares Aron.

Sara paging through a large green and gold book titled ‘Plants of the Orient’: “And here, look here,” she turns to an illustration, “Here it is, Triticum dicoccum, first recorded in a publication of 1853.”

She reads: “Triticum dicoccum, a genus of many species distributed in arid and semiarid regions..”

Aron regards the fine botanical drawing: “But will we ever find it? ”  

    “Of course we will,” she says. 

    “The money is almost finished, ” he says glumly. “ I fear my ‘research’ has got us nowhere ”.

Sara takes his arm: “Never mind, something will turn up.” 

And something does.

 Sound over of noisy hooting and excited shouting. They look up.

Parked outside the house is a brand new Ford Model T truck with open back and canvas cover emblazoned with the logo 'Jewish Agricultural Station Atlit'.

Rifka, jumps up and down as Sara and Aron come out of the house. 

Abu Farrid Wearing Chauffeur’s Cap

Abu Farrid wearing a chauffeur’s cap, steps smartly out of the truck and salutes. Rifka giggles. Malka leaning on Efraim. They regard their son’s triumph with wide eyes and much pride. Zvi and Alex look at the new truck with equal disbelief and more than a touch of envy.  

Sara just smiles.

****

‘It caused quite a stir, that truck, the first automobile in our little town. As well as some derision for the logo for the Station that had not yet been built and was still a dream in Aron’s fertile mind. Other big wigs would follow suit, some of their vehicles came from Damascus, others from Istanbul, which, as explained the Jews of Palestine still called Constantinople. But Aron’s truck came straight from America, courtesy of the Baron. The first motor vehicle in Zikhron. Evidence of the Baron’s favour. A real coup! 

But the Mother was already unwell and the family structure was about to shift in ways that would affect them all. 

****

Israel Shochat & HaShomer

It was about this time that Aron’s luck came to the attention of a group of young men lead by a man called Israel Shochat, one of the pioneers of the Second Aliyah. He was among the founders of ‘Bar Giora’ and the popular leader of HaShomer and worked in the area of defence and was chosen to be head of the organisation that had been founded together with his future wife Manya Wilbushevitz. He too had dreams and ambitions of his own. A deadly rival, opposed in every way to the Aronsons and to Aron. The town is divided, the settlements too, just as were our people in the Old Country - fervent socialists and unashamed capitalists, left and right, rich and poor, Zionist and Bundist, religious and secular, Orthodox and enlightened. The Aronson’s are already the subject of much gossip and jealousy. They are considered well-off - Efraim who came here under the direct influence of the Hovevei Zion - the Return to Zion - is a prosperous grain merchant, the family are already prominent, an elite, though not everyone likes them for that reason. Certainly not the poorer, working class of the second generation, who hate capitalism and unlike their Romanian and Russian parents are native born. They speak Hebrew not Yiddish or God forbid, Romanian or Russian. There are numerous competing youth organisations, some are decidedly militant in outlook, seeing the defence of the settlements as their main aim.

In 1913 flamboyant Alex after returning from his trip to America, with a state of the art, ciné movie camera, will found a rival group, the Gideonites. I am the only member of the group not from Zikhron Ya’akov - a strongly nationalist, anti-socialist grouping - pitting itself against the earlier formed, left wing, labour-orientated young men and women of the HaShomer Brigade - ‘The Watchman’ - who adopt local dress, and many of the customs of the Bedouins and Druze. They carry sharp daggers, as well as the highly sought after rifles and illegal Mauser pistols, ride bareback, wear Arab kaffeas. They build stockade settlements protected by sharp-pointed, wooden stakes and men - and women - with guns. The first few Shomrim - ‘Guards’, work on foot, but soon acquire horses and distinct rules of engagement:

‘You do not seek an encounter with the thief; you chase him off, and only when you have no choice do you shoot. After all, he is out to steal a bag of grain, not to murder you, so don't murder him, drive him off. Don’t sleep at night. If you hear footsteps, fire into the distance. If you feel he is a few steps away and you can fire without him falling upon you, fire into the distance. Only if your life is in danger - fire for the heart...’ 

HaShomer Guards with Israel Shochat Centre

Soon HaShomer was guarding fourteen settlements and even boasted of having killed an Arab policeman who was accused of  torturing Jews. Increasingly they are pitted against Aron and his Nili spies.

And that is where more trouble begins...’               

****

Aron & Sara with the New Truck

Aron drives his new truck into the centre of town. Sara sitting next to him, Abu Farrid in the back. Small children run after the car waving and shouting. Sara waves back.

Aron: “Well at least the children are happy to see us.” 

The town’s people stare in evident disapproval. Three women in particular, sitting at the café, exchange a malevolent glance and tut-tut.

Outside the farm supply store, a group of young Watchmen incongruously dressed in flowing robes, carrying rifles, collect a pile of lethally sharpened, wooden poles.

Israel Shochat

Their leader, Israel Shochat - his photograph reveals a messianic-looking, craggy, heavily bearded, wild-haired, wild-eyed, young man - stares mockingly as Aron and Sara enter the shop.  

    “The Baron’s largesse known no bounds,” he says with a  mocking grin.

Sara stays Aron with a light touch on his arm. Aron might have preferred a confrontation, but his sister’s presence stops him and he and Abu Farrid pick up the supplies they will need for their trip to the site of the proposed Station, forced to submit to the goading jibes of their adversaries. Sensible Sara adding waterproof boots, a first aid kit and some blankets to the pile on the counter.

Outside the truck filled with goods for the journey.

    “Come with me Sarati,” Aron begs his sister. “My muse and my good luck charm.”
    
Sara shakes her head even though she hates to disappoint her brother:

    “Abu Farrid will go with you. Mother needs me here.”

Aron nods. Sara, as ever, willing hostage to the family needs.

She waves him off.

    “And you should take a gun. But try not to use it!” she shouts after him.

The truck disappears in a cloud of dust.

The tut-tutting ladies, still pursing their lips like wrinkled prunes.

****