Thirty-five years ago, the impulse which has since been organized as the Zionist
Movement led my parents to leave their homes in Roumania and emigrate to
Palestine, where they joined a number of other Jewish pioneers in founding
Zicron-Jacob—a little village lying just south of Mount Carmel, in that fertile
coastal region close to the ancient Plains of Armageddon.
Here I was born; my childhood was passed here in the peace and harmony of this
little agricultural community, with its whitewashed stone houses huddled close
together for protection against the native Arabs who, at first, menaced the life of
the new colony. The village was far more suggestive of Switzerland than of the
conventional slovenly villages of the East, mud-built and filthy; for while it was
the purpose of our people, in returning to the Holy Land, to foster the Jewish
language and the social conditions of the Old Testament as far as possible, there
was nothing retrograde in this movement. No time was lost in introducing
progressive methods of agriculture, and the climatological experiments of other
countries were observed and made use of in developing the ample natural
resources of the land.
The Cemetery of Zicron-Jacob
Eucalyptus, imported from Australia, soon gave the shade of its cool, healthful
foliage where previously no trees had grown. In the course of time dry farming
(which some people consider a recent discovery, but which in reality is as old as
the Old Testament) was introduced and extended with American agricultural
implements; blooded cattle were imported, and poultry-raising on a large scale
was undertaken with the aid of incubators—to the disgust of the Arabs, who look
on such usurpation of the hen's functions as against nature and sinful. Our people
replaced the wretched native trails with good roads, bordered by hedges of
thorny acacia which, in season, were covered with downy little yellow blossoms
that smelled sweeter than honey when the sun was on them.
More important than all these, a communistic village government was
established, in which both sexes enjoyed equal rights, including that of suffrage
—strange as this may seem to persons who (when they think of the matter at all)
form vague conceptions of all the women-folk of Palestine as shut up in harems.
A short experience with Turkish courts and Turkish justice taught our people that
they would have to establish a legal system of their own; two collaborating
judges were therefore appointed—one to interpret the Mosaic law, another to
temper it with modern jurisprudence. All Jewish disputes were settled by this
court. Its effectiveness may be judged by the fact that the Arabs, weary of
Turkish venality,—as open and shameless as anywhere in the world,—began in
increasing numbers to bring their difficulties to our tribunal. Jews are law-
abiding people, and life in those Palestine colonies tended to bring out the
fraternal qualities of our race; but it is interesting to note that in over thirty years
not one Jewish criminal case was reported from forty-five villages.
Zicron-Jacob was a little town of one hundred and thirty "fires"—so we call it—
when, in 1910, on the advice of my elder brother, who was head of the Jewish
Experiment Station at Athlit, an ancient town of the Crusaders, I left for America
to enter the service of the United States in the Department of Agriculture. A few
days after reaching this country I took out my first naturalization papers and
proceeded to Washington, where I became part of that great government service
whose beneficent activity is too little known by Americans. Here I remained
until June, 1913, when I returned to Palestine with the object of taking motion-
pictures and stereopticon views. These I intended to use in a lecturing tour for
spreading the Zionist propaganda in the United States.
During the years of my residence in America, I was able to appreciate and judge
in their right value the beauty and inspiration of the life which my people led in
the Holy Land. From a distance, too, I saw better the need for organizations
among our communities, and I determined to build up a fraternal union of the
young Jewish men all over the country.
Two months after my return from America, an event occurred which gave
impetus to these projects. The physician of our village, an old man who had
devoted his entire life to serving and healing the people of Palestine, without
distinction of race or religion, was driving home one evening in his carriage
from a neighboring settlement. With him was a young girl of sixteen. In a
deserted place they were set upon by four armed Arabs, who beat the old man to
unconsciousness as he tried, in vain, to defend the girl from the terrible fate
which awaited her.
Night came on. Alarmed by the absence of the physician, we young men rode
out in search of him. We finally discovered what had happened; and then and
there, in the serene moonlight of that Eastern night, with tragedy close at hand, I
made my comrades take oath on the honor of their sisters to organize themselves
into a strong society for the defense of the life and honor of our villagers and of
our people at large.
These details are, perhaps, useful for the better understanding of the disturbances
that came thick and fast when in August, 1914, the war-madness broke out
among the nations of Europe. The repercussion was at once felt even in our
remote corner of the earth. Soon after the German invasion of Belgium the
Turkish army was mobilized and all citizens of the Empire between nineteen and
forty-five years were called to the colors. As the Young Turk Constitution of
1909 provided that all Christians and Jews were equally liable to military
service, our young men knew that they, too, would be called upon to make the
common sacrifice. For the most part, they were not unwilling to sustain the
Turkish Government. While the Constitution imposed on them the burden of
militarism, it had brought with it the compensation of freedom of religion and
equal rights; and we could not forget that for six hundred years Turkey has held
her gates wide open to the Jews who fled from the Spanish Inquisition and
similar ministrations of other civilized countries.
Of course, we never dreamed that Turkey would do anything but remain neutral.
If we had had any idea of the turn things were ultimately to take, we should have
given a different greeting to the mouchtar, or sheriff, who came to our village
with the list of mobilizable men to be called on for service. My own position was
a curious one. I had every intention of completing the process of becoming an
American citizen, which I had begun by taking out "first papers." In the eyes of
the law, however, I was still a Turkish subject, with no claim to American
protection. This was sneeringly pointed out to me by the American Consul at
Haifa, who happens to be a German; so there was no other course but to
surrender myself to the Turkish Government.