Beit Zera
| Beit Zera | |||
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| Beit Zera (2012) | |||
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| hebrew : | בֵּית זֶרַע | ||
| State : |
 Israel
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| District : | North | ||
| Founded : | September 1927 | ||
| Coordinates : | 32 ° 41 ' N , 35 ° 34' E | ||
| Height : | 64 m | ||
| Time zone : | UTC + 2 | ||
| Community type: | Kibbutz | ||
| Website : | |||
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Beit Zera ( Hebrew בֵּית זֶרַע Bejt Sera , German for 'House of Seed' , also Beth Sera ) is a kibbutz founded in September 1927 by German immigrants in the Jordan Valley about four kilometers south of the Sea of Galilee . In 2018, 590 people lived in the kibbutz.
prehistory
The story of Beit Zera begins in 1919 with the establishment of a Hachschara training center on the Markenhof near Kirchzarten in the southern Black Forest , acquired from the Jewish factory owner Konrad Goldmann , where members of the Jewish hiking association Blau-Weiß are preparing for emigration graduated to Palestine.
In December 1921, the first pioneer group of four women and three men immigrated to Palestine . They had been prepared for their new role by Arthur Ruppin , to whom the proposed name Kewuzat Markenhof (Kibbutz Markenhof) goes back. Her first stop in Palestine was Ein Ganim , a settlement founded in 1908 as the first moshav , which was incorporated into Petach Tikwa in 1937 .
On leased land, the pioneers used their time to practice agricultural work techniques, to get used to the climate and to learn the Hebrew language. “They were determined to give up their native language as soon as possible and only teach their children Hebrew. Almost all of them have also given up their old names and adopted Hebrew ones. ”They sold their cultivated products at the market in Petach Tikwa and there came into contact with the Palestinian-German Templars from their Wilhelma settlement , and they were mentioned in a travel report of two non-Jewish people Germans who were interested in the advancing settlement of what was then Palestine by young pioneers.
After the group had to leave 1923 A Ganim because the landlord needed the land for himself and more graduates were added the Markenhofs, they were in December 1923 together in Ruba al-Nasra, today Mizra in the Jezreel Valley down where but also a second group was settled. Since there was not enough space for two groups, the now 23 Markenhofer moved to a new settlement with some Czechs in October 1926. They found this in the Jordan Valley south of Degania on the site of the abandoned Arab village around June . ( Location ) The mud huts in which they lived there were destroyed by an earthquake in the summer of 1927.
The founding phase of Beit Zera
The earthquake did not allow the settlers to be dissuaded from their plan and celebrated the inauguration of a new settlement near Um Juni on September 20, 1927 , which - after a few other names - was named Beit Zera (Seed House). He was the fourth kibbutz established in the Jordan Valley.
The founding generation
The Beit Zera archive can name 21 founders.
| Surname | Birth Name | First name | Origin: city (country) | Membership in a youth association | Training center | Immigration to Palestine | Joining the Beit Zera kibbutz or its predecessors |
| Oppenheim | Kalischer | Resi | Berlin | Hechaluz | 1925 | Member of the Ruba al-Nasra group since 1925 | |
| Oppenheim | Hillel | Sosnowiec (Poland) | 1925 | Member of the Ruba al-Nasra group since 1925 | |||
| Efrat | Goitein | Theodora (Dorle) | Frankfurt am Main | Blue-White & Hechaluz | Markenhof | Member of the Ruba al-Nasra group since 1924 | |
| Efrat | Happy (of course) | Zvi | Krakow (Poland) | Member of the Ruba al-Nasra group since 1924 | |||
| Ziv | Silberstein | Zem | Blue-White & Hechaluz | Markenhof | |||
| Carmel | German | Zippora (Zephora) | Vyshnytsia ( Bukovina ) | Blue White | Markenhof | December 1921 | |
| Carmel | Löw (?) | Krakow (Poland) | September 1926 | ||||
| Poppy | part | Margot | Frankfurt am Main | Markenhof | 1924 | ||
| Poppy | Prague | Alexander (Alex) | Berlin | Markenhof | 1923 | ||
| Poppy | Emanuel | possibly born in around June | |||||
| Small | Jacob | Nitra ( Slovakia ) | "The employee" (?) & Hechaluz | September 1925 | Member of the Ruba al-Nasra group since 1925 | ||
| Eliasberg | George | Berlin | Markenhof | 1927 | |||
| Sadan | Anvil | Zelig | Slutoshov (Zlotoshov) (Western Poland) | Hashomer Hatzair | April 24, 1924 | Member of the Ruba al-Nasra group | |
| Gilad | Gold man | Eliezer | Nitra (Slovakia) | Hashomer Hatzair | August 1, 1925 | Member of the Ruba al-Nasra group since 1925 | |
| Carmel | Lemmler | Haika (Heike) | Auschwitz (Poland) | Hechaluz | Chestnova (Cestana) [information cannot be verified] | August 1926 | |
| Carmel | Yehuda | Krakow (Poland) | Communist youth | Markenhof | 1924 | ||
| Porat | Kahane | Shingle | Krakow (Poland) | Markenhof | December 1921 | ||
| Porat | friend | Benjamin | Ystrov (Ostrov?) | Young Judah (see: Gershom Scholem ) | Finow brass factory | 1923 | Joined the group at Ein Ganim in 1923. |
| Carpenter | Tree knight | Judith (Henny) | Frankfurt am Main | Blue-White & Hechaluz | Markenhof | March 6, 1923 | |
| Carpenter | Michael | Zhytomyr | "Hope Israel" (?) | June 1914 (aged 10) | |||
| Red | Rothschild | Peretz | Szczecin (?) | Blue White | October 16, 1922 | Joined the group in Around June 1926. |
For some of them there is further information beyond the tabular data.
Dorle Efrat
Dorle Efrat was born as Theodora Goitein (1905-1998). She is the daughter of Jacob Löb Goitein , and her first name was chosen by her father based on Theodor Herzl's first name, who died a few months before Dorle was born.
Dorle Goitein was a member of the Blau-Weiß association and prepared for her emigration to Palestine in a nursery in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen and at the Markenhof. The book by Meriam Haringman, Ayala Gordon and Edith Frankel also mentions a one-year visit to a high school for agricultural science near Bonn. In 1924 Dorle Goitein emigrated to Palestine accompanied by her cousin Shlomo Dov Goitein , who was already teaching as a teacher in Haifa and who had come to Germany during the summer holidays.
Dorle Goitein joined the Chaluzim , who in December 1923 had settled together in Ruba al-Nasra, today's Mizra . This group also included her former companions from the Markenhof, and with them she later founded Beit Zera. Shortly after the kibbutz was founded, she married Zvi Freilich (Fröhlich) (1903–1961), who was born in Kraków and who changed his surname to Efrat. Zvi came from an Orthodox Jewish family and was trained in a cheder and yeshiva . After completing his studies, he began preparing for immigration to Palestine and at the age of 21 emigrated to Palestine, where he joined the Markenhof Group. In Beit Zera he worked as an agricultural machinery mechanic and carried out repairs if necessary.
Dorle and Zvi Efrat's first child was born in 1927; he was followed by twins in 1931. Dorle was the kibbutz's first kindergarten teacher. She had studied neither pedagogy nor teaching, but continued her education by attending pedagogical courses. Working with the children was difficult because the teachers had to take care of all the needs and requirements of the children and solve all organizational and educational problems. The children lived outside their parents' house in the children's house, which had three rooms, a shower and a dining area.
Dorle Efrat worked in the children's home for about ten years and then in the vegetable gardening and chicken farm on the kibbutz. For many years she was in charge of the clothes shop and warehouse, and when the new dining room was built in 1969 she organized the cooking teams. After she reached retirement age, she trained as a bookbinder and worked in the library of the kibbutz. Descendants of her are still living in Beit Zera in 2020.
Benjamin Porat
Benjamin Porat was born Benjamin Freund on August 24, 1897 near Danzig . His father owned a small factory.
Porat temporarily attended a Jewish school and came to Berlin at the age of 17. He joined a Jewish sports club and joined the Young Judah movement , and then Blue-White. After Tromm, Porat received his training on the agricultural estate of the Hirsch copper and brass works near Eberswalde , also a Hachschara facility. In 1923 he joined the group in Ein Ganim, where he met the Markenhof graduate Scheindel Kahane, with whom he was then married.
Georg Eliasberg
Georg Eliasberg was of Russian-Jewish origin and attended the Werner Siemens Realgymnasium in Berlin , where Chaim Arlosoroff was a schoolmate . From March to September 1925 he visited the Markenhof, which was already for sale at that time. Eliasberg and the son of the economist Boris Dawidowitsch Bruzkus (1874–1938) were the last interns who received training at the Markenhof. "After various intermediate positions, Georg Eliasberg became a member of Kibbutz Beth Sera in 1927."
The early days of the kibbutz
The first permanent building in Beth Zera , the founder's house , was designed in the Bauhaus style by the architect Richard Kauffmann , from whom the overall plan for the kibbutz also came. The founding house presented itself in a simple and functional design, which was adapted to the local landscape and the climate of Israel. Together with the children's homes built two years later, the buildings form an ensemble, The Founder's Yard , which a few years ago was recognized as a historic site by UNESCO and the Israeli Council for the Preservation of Historic Places.
The construction site of the founder's house in 1927
The completed founder's house, 1928
Beit Zera's first dining room, built around 1929
The center of Beit Zera around 1930
In the winter and spring of 1928/29, Armin T. Wegner and his wife Lola Landau went on a trip that also took them to the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan Valley. Around Easter 1929 they visited Beth Zera , and Wegner recorded his impressions from there in the chapter At the Way of the Cross of the Worlds in his travelogue Die Saat der Erde (1930). He described the predominantly upper-class origin of the settlers, who would one day have left education, parental home and all prospects of a secure job in Europe behind them "to tear up the old hard-hearted homeland of Palestine with the sweat of their bent backs". He admires what they have created and states: “Today, after five years, the hiker can already find a small well-ordered and flourishing estate in Beth Sera. They even have a large, cool, concrete cowshed with clean eaves and a mobile fertilizer track. Grain fields, orange gardens, melon fields spread around the courtyard. "
Lola Landau recorded her impressions in an article that was published in the SPD newspaper Vorwärts on August 29, 1929 . In conversations with residents, she reconstructed the founding story and of course the story of the academically trained farm workers. But it also gives an impression of everyday life in the kibbutz and social coexistence.
The Zephora (or Zipora) presented in the article as the soul of the colony is the woman in the middle of the photo opposite; Zephora Deutsch, married Karmel, was one of those who had received her training at the Markenhof. What Lola Landau does not address in her article, but only in a book by her that appeared in 1987, is the fact that in Beit Zera she was not only met with friendliness, but also with rejection. Heika , Heike Lemmler (married Karmel), portrayed so positively in her article , accused her of living in a mixed marriage through which she had excluded herself from the Jewish community.
In 1930, Beit Zera joined the left-wing socialist kibbutz umbrella organization Ha-Artzi , which was founded by Hashomer Hatzair , and in 1934 he received additional personnel from a group of 65 settlers who immigrated from Vilnius . The following year a bakery was established and two years later the kibbutz had its first own herd. This prosperity did not convince everyone. Werner Kraft traveled to Beit Zera in May 1935 to give a lecture on Franz Kafka . In two letters to Maximilien Rubel he described his impressions: “Beth Sera. A forced, senseless, heroic community life in which I couldn't live. Everything about these people is admirable at such commitment, but their minds are in danger of withering. Everything about me is ordinary, but my spirit is strengthened. ”(May 4, 1935) With this community life, which remains so alien to the intellectual, the landscape does not reconcile him. “Palestine is a very beautiful country. The light, in the appearance of the simple, cold colors of the landscape, is no less heroic than the life of the people in the Kewuzot, one of whom - Beth Sera at Daganja near Tiberias - I saw! And yet I couldn't live like that. "(May 9, 1935)
From the late 1930s until today
As a result of the persecution of Jews in Europe from Germany, the kibbutz grew rapidly in the second half of the 1930s - with Holocaust survivors, another Hashomer Hatzair group from Vilnius and graduates from a training center in Mischmar haEmek . Things then became dangerous in the war for Israel's independence . On May 15, 1948, the day after Israel's declaration of independence , Beit Zera was bombed from Syria; there was one fatality. Shortly afterwards, the decision was made to evacuate the women and children to Haifa . Around 80 members remained in the kibbutz, armed with 21 rifles, several machine pistols and two machine guns. Unlike Degania, which was attacked by Syrians, Beit Zera survived the conflict in the Jordan Valley largely unscathed.
In 1952 a furniture factory was founded in the kibbutz under the name Sefen , followed in 1963 by a factory for plastic products. In October 1973, Israel occupied the Golan Heights in the Yom Kippur War . At the beginning of July 1974 a meeting of the kibbutz umbrella organization HaArtzi , which was close to the Mapam , took place in Beit Zera . The overwhelming majority of those present voted that evening to set up a kibbutz on the Golan Heights.
A memorial stone with the names of the first settlers of Beit Zera was erected in 1997 to mark the 70th anniversary of the establishment. The stone bears the inscription The plowers of the first furrow, the builders of the first house .
Privatization of the kibbutz began in 2008 and was largely completed in 2017. However, community tasks should also continue to be guaranteed through the provision of earmarked funds: services for health, education, care and assistance for disabled and low-income people. The majority of the members of the kibbutz earn their living in agriculture (plantations, crops, vineyards, cow husbandry), in industry ( Arkal Plastic Products and Arkal Filtering Systems ), in tourism and in small businesses. However, some kibbutz members also work outside of Beit Zera .
The artist Eitan Arnon , born here in the mid-1940s, lives in Beit Zera, who takes up scenes from the past in his works and documents the pioneering times as well as the struggles for survival in relation to the earth, the construction and the settlement of the country. He himself counts his father among the founders of the kibbutz. In a richly educated article from June 2018, Sabina Lohr draws a portrait of the artist and once again shows the difficult conditions of kibbutz life at the time of Arson's childhood. She also goes into detail about his commitment to a peaceful coexistence of Israelis and Arabs in Palestine.
The last blue and white
In her study of the Jewish-Zionist Wanderbund Blau-Weß , Ivonne Meybohm also deals with its attempts to settle in Palestine. She reports on a total of three attempts at settlement:
- In 1921 a group joined the kibbutz Beit Alfa founded by members of the Hashomer Hatzair . This experiment was ended again in 1922.
- In 1923 there was an attempt to found the Kwuza Zwi near Haifa , but this soon failed, not least due to a lack of financial support from Germany.
- Then, in February 1924, the blue and white workshops were founded in Tel Aviv. This initially successful attempt failed at the end of 1924 after the blue-whites refused to join the Histadrut .
Meybohm attributes the failure of the three projects to ideological and structural problems of the association and concludes: “Only a few dozen of the 3,000 blue-white members actually emigrated to Palestine. [..] The economic crisis that shook Palestine at the end of 1924 marked the final end of the blue and white in Palestine. ”This conclusion is wrong in several ways. It is refuted not only by the continued existence of Beit Zera, but also by the many blue-and-white members who found their way to Palestine in the years after 1924 and who maintained contact with one another for many years. On May 18 and 19, 1962, more than 1000 former members of the Federation came together in Nahariya "to bring back the experience that was the Blau-Weiss for all of them."
Garin Tzabar
Garin Tzabar is a program and an organization of the same name to help Diaspora Jews and Israelis who have no parents living in Israel when they join the service of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). These Jewish adults between the ages of 18 and 24 (men) or 23 years (women), known as Lone Soldiers , receive special support. Upon arrival in Israel, through the mediation of Garin Tzabar , the participants will be adopted by an Israeli community that will become their home before and during their military service. Sixty kibbutzim are participating in Israel, including Beit Zera.
literature
- Ulrich Tromm: The Markenhof as a Zionist emigration school 1919–1925 , in: Andreas Paetz / Karin Weiss (ed.): "Hachschara". The preparation of young Jews for emigration to Palestine, Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Potsdam 1999, ISBN 3-932981-50-2 .
- Meriam Haringman; Ayala Gordon; Edith Frankel: The history of the Goitein family: 1771-2012 , Jerusalem 2012. The WorldCat also reads: “The history of the Goitein family was initiated by Meriam Haringman and Ayala Gordon. Each family, all descendants of Eliyahu Menahem Goiten, wrote and related the particular story of their branch. ”The book first appeared in Hebrew in 2008 and is only available from the National Library of Israel according to WorldCat .
Web links
- Using the search term Beit Zera , some videos can be viewed on youtube that give an insight into everyday life on the kibbutz.
- Ruben Frankenstein: Hachschara in the Markenhof near Freiburg. A search for clues . The essay is also printed in: Manfred Bosch (ed.): Alemannisches Judentum - Traces of a Lost Culture. , Edition Isele, Eggingen 2001, ISBN 978-3-86142-146-7 , pp. 123-139.
- Julia Franziska Maria Böcker: HACHSCHARA AT THE MARKENHOF - FROM ZIONIST TRAINING MATERIALS TO KIBBUTZ .
- National Portal of Museums in Israel . On this website, using the search term Beit Zera, almost 50 photos are displayed, most of which document kibbutz life in the 1940s.
- Official history of Beit Zera (available in English). There is also a link on the page under the title Garin Tzabar . A presentation with English subtitles opens over it, containing current and historical images about Beit Zera. The presentation is actually intended for young Jews who are being looked after by Garin Tzabar (see above).
Individual evidence
- ^ Population in the Israeli localities in 2018
- ↑ a b c d Ruben Frankenstein: Hachschara in the Markenhof near Freiburg (see sources)
- ↑ There is only one article on Ein Ganim in the English WIKIPEDIA: en: Ein Ganim
- ^ Artur Rundt, Richard A. Bermann: Palestine. A travel book , EP Tal & Co., Leipzig Vienna Zurich 1923
- ↑ a b c Julia Franziska Maria Böcker: HACHSCHARA AT THE MARKENHOF
- ↑ For a brief outline of the history of the kibbutz see the article in the English WIKIPEDIA: en: Mizra
- ↑ a b c d e f Official history of Beit Zera (see web links)
- ↑ The data are based on a table made available by the archive on February 19, 2013 in Hebrew. The information, in turn, is based on personal information from the kibbutz members and on video interviews with a number of veterans in 1980. The names were partially verified by comparing them with Ruben Frankenstein's article Hachschara in the Markenhof near Freiburg (see sources).
- ↑ In Frankenstein's German name Peleg is referred to, Böcker mentions him as Alex Prag with reference to an archival document in the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem. No previous name is mentioned in the Beit Zera document.
- ↑ The address book of the city of Frankfurt am Main for the year 1920 contains only one entry with this name on page 26 (pdf page 44): "Baumritter, B., Schuhmacher -bedarfs-Großhdlg., Thomasisus-Str. 4 II ". The same address is used in the newspaper Blau-Weiss-Blätter. The Führer newspaper listed an Arthur Baumritter as the address of the Frankfurt Blue and White Association. ( Blau-Weiss-Blätter. Führerzeitung , edited by the federal administration of the Jewish Wanderbünde Blau-Weiss, Issue 3 (December 1920-1921), pdf-p. 2). This suggests that Judith Baumritter came from this family.
- ↑ Julia Franziska Maria Böcker: HACHSCHARA AT THE MARKENHOF - FROM ZIONIST IMMIGRANT EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS TO KIBBUTZ
- ↑ Ulrich Tromm: The Markenhof as a Zionist Emigration School 1919–1925 , p. 25
- ↑ a b c d e Meriam Haringman; Ayala Gordon; Edith Frankel: The history of the Goitein family: 1771-2012
- ↑ For a brief outline of the history of the kibbutz see the article in the English WIKIPEDIA: en: Mizra
- ↑ Ulrich Tromm: The Markenhof as a Zionist Emigration School 1919–1925 , p. 20
- ↑ Ulrich Tromm: The Markenhof as Zionist Emigration School 1919–1925 , pp. 22–23
- ↑ a b Ulrich Tromm: The Markenhof as a Zionist emigration training course 1919–1925 , pp. 24–25
- ^ Kibbutz Bet-Zera - Past and Future in the Founders House . A video (in English) can be called up via the page or directly, which provides very clear information about the Founder's Yard .
- ↑ Armin T. Wegner, quoted from Ruben Frankenstein: Hachschara in the Markenhof near Freiburg (online version)
- ↑ Lola Landau: Before forgetting. My three lives , Ullstein Verlag, Frankfurt 1987, p. 274 ff .; here referenced by Ruben Frankenstein: Hachschara in the Markenhof near Freiburg (see: Weblinks).
- ↑ Both quotations from: Ulrich Breden: Werner Kraft - a life outline , in: Between Jerusalem and Hanover. The letters to Curd Ochwadt , ed. by Ulrich Breden and Curd Ochwadt, Wallstein, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-89244-745-4 , p. 188. For the term Kewuzot used by Kraft, see the etymology of the term kibbutz .
- ↑ Mapam Movement Votes to Set Up New Kibbutz on Golan Heights
- ↑ Zvika Israel, Eitan Arnon: A Mosaic of Memories
- ↑ Eitan Arnon on ZIEMELART . There is also a selection of pictures of him. There are several videos about and with him on youtube .
- ↑ Sabina Lohr: Life and Peace on Kibbutz Beit Zera - a Talk with Israeli Artist Eitan Arnon , June 3, 2018
- ^ Ivonne Meybohm: Education for Zionism. The Jewish Wanderbund Blau-Weiß as an attempt to put the program of the Jewish Renaissance into practice , Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-631-58481-1
- ↑ a b c d Meybohm: Education for Zionism , pp. 100-103
- ↑ Hans Tramer: Jewish Wanderbund Blau-Weiss. A contribution to its external history , in: Bulletin of the Leo Baeck Institute, Volume 5, No. 17 (1962), pp. 23–43
- ↑ About Garin Tzabar . There is also an article about Garin Tzabar in the English WIKIPEDIA: en: Garin Tzabar
- ^ "The history of the Goiten family was initiated by Meriam Haringman and Ayala Gordon. Each family, all of whom are offspring of Eliyahu Menahem Goiten, participated by writing and telling the particular story of their branch. "