Jews in the Holy Land are bringing to life again the Palestine of the past. They are proving that their ancient “land of milk and honey” can be made to bloom and prosper. Gathered together in colonies, they are introducing modern farming methods and showing what can be done under proper conditions.

The trim Jewish villages built by the colonists are a refreshing sight in contrast to the dirty Arab settlements and their more or less desolate surroundings. The energy and alertness of many of the settlers are also noticeable as compared with the natives who have been content for centuries to do no more than their fathers have done before them and in the same ways.

At first most of the Jews came to Palestine only for the sake of ending their days in the land of their fathers. They were a sort of resident pilgrims. Others came to get away from oppression and persecution. Gradually the success of the farm colonies attracted the attention of Jews all over the world, and regularly organized movements for planting Jewish settlements in the Holy Land sprang up. More and more colonists began to come because they wanted to get on the land and saw in Palestine chances of greater freedom and success in life than in the crowded streets and small shops of European cities. Colonies were set up under all sorts of schemes and plans, and while there have been some failures, many have been quite successful.

When groups of colonists first come out they frequently live in tents, and even before they build permanent houses set to work starting nurseries, planting trees, draining swamps, picking up stones, and otherwise preparing the land for cultivation. Millions and millions of stones have been picked up from the rock-strewn hillsides of Palestine, piled into baskets, and then carried off and laid up to form terraces to keep the soil from being washed away or to make walls like those so often seen on New England farms.

There is a tree here called the “Jews’ tree,” because the colonists have planted so many of them on their lands. This is the eucalyptus, first brought to Palestine by the Jewish settlers. As this tree absorbs a great deal of moisture it is a good one to plant in swampy land, and, as has been found in other countries, by helping to drain the marshes it is a factor in keeping down malaria. Besides giving shade in this land of glaring sun, it furnishes wood for orange boxes and may in time be grown to such an extent as to increase the scanty fuel supply.

Some of these farm colonies are in Galilee, some in Judea, and a very large one is not far from the seaport of Jaffa.

The latter is known as the Rishon le Zion, or “the first colony of Zion.” It supports a village of about twelve hundred people, who cultivate three thousand acres, on which are grown almonds, oranges, and other fruits, especially grapes. This colony annually makes millions of gallons of wine and it exports great quantities of Jaffa oranges. I am told that its wine cellars are the third largest in the world. It was founded by the Rothschilds to give persecuted Russian Jews a refuge, and afterward managed by the Hirsch colonization fund. It is run at a profit. The other colonies are similar to it, and some of them nearly as large. Each has a school, a drug store, a hospital, and a synagogue.

The Sir Moses Montefiore colonies and schools at Jerusalem are doing good work, and the French-Jewish Society, which has a million members, maintains a number of schools, including manual training schools for girls and boys. If the students do well they are given capital to start out with and are established in little shops of their own. In some of these schools the children are so poor that they are furnished one meal a day and one suit of clothes every year.

Another colony, Tel Aviv, or “The Hill of the Ears of Grain,” has a high school graduates from which have been admitted to Columbia and other American universities. The only language spoken in this school is Hebrew, which is being revived as the language of a great many of the Jews who have settled in the Promised Land. The colony of Gederah is celebrated for its large flock of doves, which are the common property of the community. Rechoboth, founded in 1890, was the first colony to introduce Jewish workmen with success.

While the Jews of ancient Palestine were farmers, it is now nearly two thousand years since they have had any land of their own to develop. When they were driven out of their country by their conquerors, they were scattered over the world, and took refuge in the cities where most of them have been living ever since. There they became a people of traders and shopkeepers, and because of this fact many have believed that the Jewish colonies in the Holy Land could never succeed.

The Arabs in Palestine have a saying that the love of trading is in the blood of a Jew and that he can’t help wanting to be a merchant any more than he can help wanting to possess the Holy Land. They say that a few years after coming to Palestine a Jewish colonist will be found looking out of the back windows of his house at a gang of Arabs doing his farm work, while in his front windows he displays, not his farm products, but goods he has bought for sale. Many of the Jewish settlers did, in fact, find it difficult to take up farm work, and were inclined to hire Arabs who would work for lower wages than Jews. This led to friction between Jews and Arabs, but now more and more of the colonists are doing their own farm work, road making, carpentering, and other manual labour. The colonists have also learned that the most scientific farming methods pay best, and are developing schools where their young people are taught how to get the most out of the land.

The Jews of other lands are liberal in their gifts to the Jews of Palestine, and, besides helping to set up the colonies, have established schools and hospitals in and about Jerusalem. One of the sources from which money comes for the settlement and advancement of the Jewish colonies is a fund collected from the synagogues of the United States, which is regularly sent from New York to the Holy Land. Jews all over our country contribute to it.

There have been several American colonies in the Holy Land, but the only one that has made any impression or lasted for any long time is that known for some years as the Spaffordites. It was founded by Dr. and Mrs. Spafford, who belonged to a Presbyterian church in Chicago. They left the church and came to Jerusalem, saying that they intended to devote their wealth and their lives to working for Christ in the Holy Land. They persuaded fourteen adults and five children to come with them, and together they founded a colony which has lasted until now.

That was 1881. To-day the colony has members from all parts of the Union. There are a number from New England, some from the South, several from Kansas and Nebraska, and quite a delegation from Philadelphia and Chicago. I have talked with them about their beliefs. They say they are Christians and that they believe in the Bible interpreted as it is printed. They take the Golden Rule as their motto and try to live up to it. They say they have no hobbies, and that their Christianity is a practical faith.

This colony lives together as a community, its members holding all things in common. At first they threw their money into a common fund, and lived without working. Finding, however, that this fund was soon spent, they established a business of their own and are now self-supporting. They have their own house outside the walls, where they live very comfortably, eating at a common table with worship morning and evening. They frequently take Americans in as paying guests, charging less than the prevailing hotel rates for much better quarters. They also have a bakery from which they sell bread and cake; a shoe shop, and an art school, where girls are taught painting and drawing. They have factories where they make desks, boxes, and other beautiful things of olive wood; and a weaving establishment where cloths of wool and linen are made.

Some years ago they also established what is known as the American store. This is near the Jaffa Gate inside Jerusalem, and right on the way from that gate to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

This store is about the only one-price establishment in the Holy Land. In all other places three times what is expected is asked, and one has to dicker and bargain and beat down the merchants. In the American store one can buy photographs and slides of the Holy Land, brass work from Damascus, rugs from Persia and Turkey, and any sort of curio made in the country.

During my stay in Jerusalem I several times visited this colony, and was delighted with the peace, quiet, and brotherly love which seem to prevail. Its members are well bred and intelligent; and as far as I can see they practise what they preach. An interesting feature is their grace before meals. This is always sung at the table by both members and guests.

One of the most interesting Jewish colonies is at Zammarin on the southwest slope of Mount Carmel, where these notes are written. The place is about five hours’ ride from Haifa, and a day’s journey by carriage from Nablus. The town is owned by a Jewish colony which has a large tract of land given it by Baron Edward Rothschild of Paris. The land is high above the sea at the northern end of the plain of Sharon, so situated that it commands a view of that plain at the east and of the Mediterranean Sea at the west. The country about is covered with chunks of limestone of all shapes and sizes, and, besides, the bedrock crops out in ledges with small tracts of arable land here and there.

The Jews have taken this land, have cleared it of the loose rocks, and are making it bloom like a garden. They have some quite large fields on top of Mount Carmel, which is now covered with wheat waving in the wind. They are raising luxuriant crops of oats and beans and they have vineyards as thrifty as those of south France or the Rhine. Their olive orchards would be a credit to any part of Italy; and their English walnut trees bear like those of southern California. They are raising fine cattle, which they graze on the hills in the daytime and bring in at night. The milk is excellent, and the meat as tender and sweet as the corn-fed beef of Chicago. I am told that the land produces abundantly and that the colony does well.

Zammarin is far different from the squalid Arab towns of Palestine. Its houses are of German architecture and many of its people speak German. It has a hotel run by an American Jew and planned upon Jewish lines. Outside the door of my room is fastened a tube of olive wood containing the Ten Commandments, and similar tubes are to be found at every door of the hotel, as well as on the doors of every house in the place. The Jews kiss these tubes as they go in and out.

Zammarin has sidewalks, and there is a tower into which water is pumped to supply every house. There is a synagogue, which is well attended, and a town hall, where the officials of the colony meet and decide all matters of local government.

Indeed, the colony is a little republic with a president and other officials elected by its members. It settles its own disputes, and makes assessments for special taxes for such things as schools and village improvements. When Zammarin was started it was supported by Rothschild. Later on it was turned over to the Anglo-Israelite Colonization Society founded by Baron Hirsch. It was then supported from Europe, but this did not work and it is now running itself. Every family works for itself and has its own property. As a result the people are becoming independent. The standard of self-respect has risen, and all seem to be prospering.