Summary
The first Zionist agricultural cooperative, in the Jezreel Valley, founded on Franz Oppenheimer’s blueprints and endorsed at the Ninth Zionist Congress in 1909; its 1913 residents’ photograph with Oppenheimer is the cover image of Zionism and Cosmopolitanism: Franz Oppenheimer and the Dream of a Jewish Future in Germany and Palestine (Zionism and Cosmopolitanism: Franz Oppenheimer and the Dream of a Jewish Future in Germany and Palestine, PDF p.5, p.15, p.36).
Details
- Oppenheimer stands in the 1913 photograph in a three-piece white suit, with his backer Shlomo Kaplansky and his disciple Salomon Dyk, the cooperative’s director (PDF p.15).
- Merhavia’s existence coincides with the emergence of Zionist adherence to Jewish labor, and it was one of the first Zionist agricultural enterprises and thus one of the main battlegrounds for enforcing that principle; Oppenheimer’s position on the inclusion of Arab labor is the focus of the book’s Merhavia section (PDF p.33).
- Merhavia ceased to exist as a cooperative after the First World War (PDF p.15).
Related pages
Zionism and Cosmopolitanism: Franz Oppenheimer and the Dream of a Jewish Future in Germany and Palestine, Franz Oppenheimer, Shlomo Kaplansky