טיול חלוצים Chalutzim

So, on Tuesday we travelled to Kfar Tavor and the Kinneret to learn about the Chalutzim coming to Eretz Yisrael. The Chalutzim were the pioneers who came to cultivate and work the land of Israel in order to later settle it as a nation.  There were two main waves of Aliyah which ranged from 1881-1903 and 1904-1914.

              The Aliyah Rishona was the first wave of Once to Israel (60,000), in itself there were two types of Chalutzim in this movement. The “Yeshuv Yeshan” and the “Yeshuv Chadash”. The old seat were the Jews who came to the four holy cities to study Torah, they had a rather poor lifestyle because they lived off of a fund send from other countries and didn’t work. They were the über religious Jews thoroughly devout in their studies there. Whereas the new seat weren’t necessarily religious nor did they focus on it. They wanted a new life in which they’d work and make a connection with the land (Labour Zionism). They worked as a community in Moshavs however unlike the second Aliyah, they worked for their own profit. A “Productive Jewish Society” was the start of a new revolution for these pioneers.            Despite how promising this idea was, there were still many challenges at hand for the Chalutzim. First of all the land that they bought was much less than appealing than promised, often times it was actually swampland which wasn’t 

farm-able in addition there was also disease present there. One major problem was their financial cr which made them reliant on Baron Rothschild despite their desired independence. He even sent clerks over and ran everything from afar to not lose any further money much to the protest of the Chalutzim. Other than that, the Jews had problems with the local (Arab) neighbors and the Turkish governmen

            The second Aliyah criticized the first because of two main things; lack of independence and outsourcing labour. That being said we can tell clear differences between the two. The second Aliyah was first of all more successful than the first but also this time there were a good number of determined, young, labour capable people (3,000 out of 33,000). There were three main causes for the second Aliyah which were the Kishinev pogroms, failed socialist revolution in Russian, and the Uganda proposal. Yosef Vitkin wrote an outcry to appeal to the young Jews to come and make Aliyah after the failed Socialist revolution. The second wave of Chalutzim wanted to rebuild and cultivate the land, they were also quite into having a socialist situation so they made small communities (or groups) with their friends called kibbutzim. They believed everything should be communal and that Hebrew should be the spoken language for the new nation.

            I thought that for the people to move to a completely different country and to risk so much was quite brave and I admire how they were able to do so. I think they could’ve done better in some aspects but given their situation I think they handled everything more than okay and pretty well actually. I think that what the Chalutzim did and envisioned was admirable and I give props to them for what they created however past that I don’t have much to say.

            The cemetery of Kinneret to me presents the memories and experiences from k’vutza Kinneret and that envelops both the hopes and despairs of the Chalutzim there. For instance the grave for Lotus was signifying a despair at the loss of the first child of the kibbutz. On the other hand it shows the inspiring and hope providing tales of some certain individuals like Rachel for example. I believe that the cemetery signifies both sides of this equally and that these, like two sides of a coin these memories make up and show the character of Kinneret.

            So, after a long day of learning and travel, what do you think you’d have done in the position of the Chalutzim? And which form of Zionist do you most agree with in terms of the Chalutzim? -Seth Crandus