Agricultural Workers’ Settlement in Petah Tikva
Published by Keren Hayesod, Central Office, Jerusalem—London, 75 Great Russell Street, WC1.
Contesting age-old stereotypes portraying Jews as incapable of interacting productively with nature, working the land held a particular symbolic significance for Zionists who envisaged that the Jews’ return to their homeland would restore them to a wholesome lifestyle from which the restrictive conditions in the diaspora had (supposedly) alienated them.
The agricultural settlement (in Hebrew moshav, pl. moshavim) established by traditional religious Jews, in 1878, in Petah Tikva (Hebrew for “Opening of Hope”), often referred to as the mother of all moshavot, was located northeast of Jaffa. It initially failed but was reestablished in 1883 with funds provided by Edmond de Rothschild. Petah Tikva gradually evolved into a major Israeli city. The Keren Hayesod (Foundation Fund) was a fundraising organization established by the World Zionist Congress in 1920.
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