Yehoshua Hankin's words resonate above the magnificent fields of Jezreel Valley: "My purpose in life is to redeem the land for our people who yearn for it." The flowering valley brings to life the words of the man who purchased 750,000 dunams of land in Eretz Israel to further Jewish settlement.
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As fate would have it – and traffic and the kids – during Passover we visited two museums dedicated to Israel's founding fathers, in Kfar Tavor and in Ma'alot-Tarshiha. The first tells the story of the early days of Zionist settlement when the State of Israel was not even envisioned; the story of the land's redemption and of the settlers' almost imaginary hold on it, with all their hope and despair. This is how Kfar Tavor – Mas'ha – was born in 1901. The second museum tells of the young state, its immigrants and those yearning for it, who settled a barren, rocky hill and wouldn't let go, who built their lives and the story of the nation with their elderly and their children, way back in 1957.
Kfar Tavor is suffused with the atmosphere of its founders: the street names, the squares, the sculptures, the signs on the buildings. For an outsider, the museum complements the tour of the village where the great Yigal Allon was born and raised. Her are the sons of farmers from Zichron Ya'akov, Metula, and Rosh Pina, who settled on the land at the beginning of the century and suffered through disease, drought, isolation, security threats, and constant tensions with the Turkish authorities. The museum tells the story of twenty young families who, with indescribable heroism, would not let go. It tells of Yosef Vitkin, the educator and intellectual, who, living in the rough reality of the village, published a "Call to the Youth of Israel whose Heart is with the People in Zion." He saw the burden endured by the settlers and their families, and called on the Jews of the Diaspora to come to the land and build it, for "Soon our land will slip away from us forever."
But the land did not slip away. The settlers who held on would not let it out of their grasp. They did not pass on the torch of Zionism, but rather let the flames rise higher with more and more pioneers. This is the story told by the museum in Ma'alot, where, from every corner, the Zionist story bursts forth. "I came in a suit and was given a hoe," says Leon Akrish. "I worked in the plant nursery, in the hills, I worked wherever we were taken," attests Sultana Amar.
Among all the exhibits, one small picture tells a great story. Those who see it will understand the essence of Zionism. It is the portrait of a mature man, his face wrinkled, his clothes half-tailored, working the land with a hoe. Where did he come from? Did he speak Hebrew? What was his profession? Where was his family? We know nothing about him, except that he came to the land to work it and keep it.
The appeals of Moroccan Jews to the nascent Israeli government to bring them to Israel pluck the heartstrings. The same sentiment arises at the distress of the mother in Kfar Tavor, her son dying of malaria before her eyes. But that's not the tale the museums tell. There's no sense of victimhood, only strength, and growth. No hands are thrust forward to receive charity, only to take up a hoe. It is a tale of human and national heroism, of personal difficulties and how they were overcome. The result – a masterpiece.
Two museums, one story. Yehoshua Hankin, Yigal Allon, Sultana Amar, Leon Akrish. A valley by a mountain, a village by a city, Europe by Morocco, the pre-state Yishuv by the nascent state. A great, beautiful Zionist puzzle putting together the ongoing project of loving, value-based Zionism, building a state. The miracle of the building of Zion.
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