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After many disappointments, the farmers found fields near the Arab village of Aqir, hence the name Ekron. There were more hurdles due to the Turkish ban on European Jewish immigration and land purchase. It was finally purchased through a Paris-based charity, approved by the Ottoman authorities and later transferred to Rothschild. A joyful telegram dated November 6, 1883, announced that the Russian farmers finally began plowing the land. Only in 1885 did the rest of their families relocate from Russia to Ekron. Since it was difficult to obtain licenses for human housing, the early settler families lived in barns. The settlers of Ekron were passionate about everything they did—their farming, their religion, their dedication to becoming and remaining independent and self-sustaining. Everyone, including the women and children, worked hard in the fields; home furnishings and food were simple and sparse. There was malaria and trachoma; people died. Others went blind. Kalonymus Ze’ev Wissotzky, an Orthodox Jew who was a tea merchant active in the Chovevei Zion movement, visited them in 1884 and wrote, “A beauty and trembling grandeur hover over wheat stalks robed in majesty—for they realize that they are the product of sons [the settlers] whose souls yearned to eat of the table of their Father in Heaven . . .” They prayed. They had two Mishnah study groups. When they had a siyum, “their joyous sounds could be heard for miles.” They were proud to perform the Blessing of the Kohanim every day, as is the halachah in the Land of Israel. But the religious Russian farmers and the semi-assimilated administrators of the Baron did not always see eye to eye. The administrators would complain, for example, that the farmers were taking too much time for prayers. The Baron would reply, “Serve the Lord, our God, with all your hearts’ desire, and take as much time with your prayers as you wish . . .” These and other conflicts between the settlers and the Baron’s administrators among the colonies grew with time. There was a rebellion in Rishon L’Tzion, which was resolved when the Baron paid a visit to Palestine. Then the Baron came to Ekron, whose settlers turned out in holiday clothing and received him like a head of state. He kissed the Torah scroll they
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seum, Mazkeret Batya
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Simcha and Mina Kurchevsky, heads of the hachnasat orchim society in Mazkeret Batya. Photo courtesy of Eran Shamir Village Mu-
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Fall 5774/2013 JEWISH ACTION 31