Summary
Author of The Jewish National Fund (London: Kegan Paul International, 1988), relied on by both The Question of Palestine and Purchase by Other Means: The Palestine Nakba and Zionism’s Conquest of Economics for the Jewish National Fund’s structure, land purchases and acquisition policy.
Details
- In Said, Lehn’s research is the cited basis for the JNF coming out of the Jewish Colonial Trust in 1901, empowered to buy land and hold it in trust for the Jewish people, usable exclusively for purchase of land in Palestine and Syria, always under the control of the World Zionist Organization, with first purchases in 1905 and 936,000 dunams acquired by statehood (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.118-119 / printed p.97-98).
- In Wolfe, Lehn notes how shifts in JNF acquisition policy reflected circumstances on the ground: large landholdings the consistent preference, absentee landowners initially targeted, and, when British policy became more restrictive in the later 1930s, a policy “to buy any land from any owner, large or small, who was willing or could be persuaded or forced (e.g. through mortgage foreclosure) to sell” (Lehn, p.79; Purchase by Other Means: The Palestine Nakba and Zionism’s Conquest of Economics, PDF p.24, notes 72-74 / printed p.156).
- Wolfe also cites Lehn for the JNF’s deficit financing — its 1939 report that its “indebtedness has been much enlarged” (pp.72-73, note 62) — for mortmain (pp.54, 72-73, note 78), for the state-land reclassification and its extent (pp.76-77, notes 88-90), and for an overview of JNF purchases up to the Nakba (pp.69-74, note 85); note 1 cites pp.69-74 for key land-acquisition statistics.
Related pages
Purchase by Other Means: The Palestine Nakba and Zionism’s Conquest of Economics, The Question of Palestine, Jewish National Fund, Kenneth Stein