Nahalal was where my maternal family settled in Israel. Each time we visit we get closer to the real history of how it came to be that my father's uncle, Yakov, and others from Eastern Europe left their homes in search of a country where they could be free and own land. And how slowly, other family members came to Palestine and the United States.
Before visiting Nahalal, however, we went to the cemetery of Nahalal where Yakov and Chana, Yishavam, Drora, and many other Webman family members are buried. Also Moshe Dayan and the Israeli astronaut who was killed in the Challenger disaster.
The story of creating Nahalal is very interesting. Yakov Webman was supposed to work in a mill with his family in Poland. But he refused and was determined to study. His family realized that he was serious about following his own mind so they all helped him find the schools in which to study. During this period he met many Zionists, including Ben Gurion. He became convinced that he should live in Israel and work the land.
The land of Nahalal belonged to an Arab who had many sons. The sons were not caring to their father and were only waiting for him to die so they could inherit his land. But the man did not like this attitude and sold the land to the Jews. While living in tents, these Zonists figured out how to drain the swampy land by digging trenches by hand and laying pipes to follow the natural typography of the land. None of them knew how to farm, but everyone was determined to be successful in agriculture. To these people, it meant stability and owning a piece of the future. The group of people who worked the land decided that they wanted to create a Moshav, a cooperative, not a Kibbutz. So they hired an architect to draw up a plan. It became a circle with many spokes. All the community buildings were in the center: the scools, clinic, etc. Outside the circle were all the farms of equal dimension and acreage. Nahalal was established in 1921. The dairy farm is still in operation today, along with some of the original members of my family from 1921.
We were served a delicious vegetarian lunch and then proceeded to visit the "family farm". Hadassah, the oldest of Yakov's siblings, was too frail to see us, but she promised to relate stories of my father as a young boy in nearby Jedda. We visited Uri who was married to my father's aunt and ran the dairy farm. He was so excited to see us, but he, too, has become frail since we saw him last. So now it is even more important for our family to communicate and stay together.
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