Report to the ... Zionist Congress and to the Council of the Jewish Agency in ... · 1935-08-01 · 8.1935 · p. Seite 343

The principle of " self-work " was paramount, and the area of land per settler was limited, so that the settler and his family might be able to cultivate it without having to employ outside labour, a procedure which entails expenses and exploitation, and frequently leads to class struggles. iC. The Structure of the Colonisation. The human material which was at the disposal of the Jewish colonisation workers in Palestine willing to endure all the privations entailed in such colonisation, was very limited in numbers, deficient in experience and having high cultural requirements. This handful of people was scattered in the existing colonies both in Falha and in the plantations. They realised that the system of cultivation needed radical reform, but they had no proper guidance. The problems with which they had to grapple, were not only of an economic nature, but also of a social character. In addition to their needs of normal working conditions they also had definite social requirements, which were not easy to satisfy. The Zionists, recognising that the main factor in colonisation consists not only in increasing the productivity of land and improving working systems, but also the finding of suitable human material, organised according to its inner needs. It was therefore necessary to beat a new track and deviate from the trodden path of the existing agriculture. The occupation of waste lands in defiance of illness, agricultural training, communal life and work to which the new pioneers became accustomed, made the responsible authorities look for forms of colonisation which would enable the settlers to continue communal life and work as formerly. These tendencies led to the establishment of the Kvutzah, which has as its basis the conception of communal life and work. The settlers first occupied farms of the Jewish National Fund. Those first settlers fought with all their might against afflictions of nature, harassing by the Turkish Government, attacks by robbers, and the effects of the World War, etc. The first pioneer settlers, working under the most unfavourable conditions imaginable, deserve a page of honour in the history of Jewish national colonisation in Palestine. When the War ended, and the British occupied the country, and a stream of immigration followed, the Jewish National Fund succeeded in acquiring considerable tracts of land for extensive colonisation, and the Keren Hayesod undertook to provide the means necessary for such colonisation, as a result of which new settlement units sprang up in the vicinity of the existing scattered settlements. The workers who trained themselves in the Jewish National Fund farms formed a nucleus for the new settlements. Simultaneously with the small Kvutzah, the idea of large Kvutzoth took hold of the workers, which should include in their plan not 343