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Rooted in the home garden and in the nation'slandscape: Women and the emerging Hebrew garden inPalestine

To cite this Article: Alon-Mozes, Tal , 'Rooted in the home garden and in the nation'slandscape: Women and the emerging Hebrew garden in Palestine', LandscapeResearch, 32:3, 311 - 331To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/01426390701318197URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01426390701318197

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Rooted in the Home Garden andin the Nation’s Landscape: Womenand the Emerging Hebrew Gardenin Palestine

TAL ALON-MOZESTechnion, Israel Institute of Technology, Israel

ABSTRACT In the early 20th century, the Hebrew women in Palestine found the fulfillment oftheir economic, social, and emotional needs in gardening. Their gardens were women’s means ofshaping their surroundings, mainly in the family sphere but also in the community sphere (schooland kindergarten gardens, kibbutz gardens). The project was an outcome of the shared interests ofpioneer women, city dwellers, and Jewish women’s organizations, which differed in their socialstatus and life goals, yet shared a common fertile ground. Through the investigation of primary andsecondary sources that deal with women, gardens and the history of the Zionist settlement inPalestine, this paper argues that planting gardens was the Hebrew women’s modest way ofcreating a ‘space of their own’, where they nurtured and fostered beauty, productivity, self-esteem,mutual help and friendship, while overcoming class distinction. Meanwhile, in planting gardens,women gained a share in the Zionist nation-building project, which was primarily male dominated.

KEY WORDS: gardens, women, culture, Palestine, Zionism

In the story ‘Roots’ (‘Shorashim’), Israeli writer and painter Nahum Gutmandescribes Mrs Berger, one of the first inhabitants of Tel Aviv, who every afternoon at5 o’clock, watered her garden with water mixed with pigeon droppings. Wearing apressed white apron, she looked like a big, heavy butterfly, passing from one seedlingto another, from one flowerbed to another.

It is hard to estimate the depth and strength of the foundations of the houses inour little, new neighborhood. However, the deep roots under the feet of awoman working in a garden are apparent. It would be impossible to uproot ordisplace them. (Gutman, 1959, p. 48)

This 1910 image (Figure 1), from the early days of Tel Aviv—the first Hebrewtown in Palestine—illustrates the contribution made by Hebrew women to the

Correspondence Address: Tal Alon-Mozes, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Faculty of

Architecture and Town Planning, Haifa, Israel. Email: artal@tx.technion.ac.il

Landscape Research,Vol. 32, No. 3, 311 – 331, June 2007

ISSN 0142-6397 Print/1469-9710 Online/07/030311-21 � 2007 Landscape Research Group Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/01426390701318197

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creation of a gardening culture in Eretz Israel (the ‘Land of Israel’, formerlyPalestine). As newcomers lacking any gardening tradition, Jewish women whoimmigrated to Palestine in the second and the third waves of immigration (1903 –1914 and 1920 respectively) wanted to become farmers, like the men. Their followers,who arrived in the fourth wave of immigration (1924 – 1929), preferred to remainhousekeepers. For both, as a pioneer’s way of life or as a bourgeoisie occupation,gardening was the Hebrew women’s way to attain self-fulfillment, secure a higherstatus and empower themselves economically.

This paper’s research question explores the role of women and gardening inshaping the Zionist private and public domain of pre-state Israel. It argues thatplanting gardens was the Hebrew women’s modest way of creating a ‘space of theirown’, where they nurtured an atmosphere of beauty, productivity, self-esteem,mutual help and friendship; while overcoming class distinction. Meanwhile, inplanting gardens, they gained a share in the Zionist nation-building project, whichwas primarily male dominated.1

This paper is principally based on primary sources, such as journalisticarticles, memoirs, personal diaries, activity reports and photographs that documentthe Hebrew women of Palestine and their gardens during the beginning of the 20thcentury. In addition, it examines secondary sources that deal with the history of theZionist settlement in Palestine, in order to present the research topic in its broadercontext.

Figure 1. Mrs Berger watering her garden in Nahum Gutman’s story ‘Shorashim’ (1959).

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discussing gardening culture and women in Palestine in the late 19th century to early20th century; the second part documents the contribution of women to the creationof a gardening culture in the urban and the rural settlements of Palestine duringthe early 20th century; and the third and last part, the discussion, deals with thesignificance of the findings from two perspectives: from the broader perspective—theestablished female practices during the beginning of the 20th century, and fromthe local perspective—the creation of a culture, society and place in Eretz Israel (theLand of Israel).

Gardening Culture and Women in Palestine in the Late 19th Century

to Early 20th Century

Until the late 19th century to early 20th century, gardening culture2 in Palestine wasmainly restricted to the domestic sphere. Small utility gardens (‘bustans’) flourishedaround the Palestinian dwellings in villages and small towns, around the EuropeanChristian settlements, such as the Templars’ colonies, and in the first Jewishsettlements that were established by European philanthropists (Alon-Mozes & Amir,2002; Braudo, 1983). Mostly women cultivated these utility gardens, which weredotted with flowers and decorative trees, filling their traditional nurturing role in thehousehold.

Meanwhile, in the West, new ideas, which prevailed mainly in middle- and upper-class circles, assigned women a greater role in the culture of gardening. Both inAmerica and in Europe, gardening and the study of botany were consideredappropriate occupations for women of all social classes and mainly for the middleand the upper classes, because they encouraged physical activity in the fresh air, werebelieved to prevent mental disorders, and would keep women away from thefrivolous city life and from meddling in politics (Bell, 1990; Harris, 2001). During the19th century, this concept of gardening as a feminine practice based on tending,nurturing, and education, inspired extensive literature written by women gardenersfor other women gardeners, the publication of gardening periodicals for women, theopening of gardening clubs for women, and the writing of gardening books forchildren.3

This gardening culture was not a part of the life of most of the Jewish people livingin Europe, and especially the Jewish women. Holding a lower class status, living insmall, dense towns in Eastern Europe and earning their living mainly fromcommerce and not from agricultural work, Jewish women hardly practiced anygardening (Alon-Mozes, 2002). There were exceptions, like the German Jews, who,until the mid-1930s felt they were an integral part of the German nation, andnurtured gardens like their non-Jewish neighbors; however, their influence ongardening culture in Palestine during the early 20th century was limited.

The Zionist movement, as a western colonizing movement that aimed to re-settlethe Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, cherished the ethos of cultivating theland. The aspiration to work in agriculture, to create the New Hebrew Individualand to develop a native bond between the newcomers and their ancestral homelandwas central to Zionist idealism. However, gardening was not included in Zionistpriorities, as it was considered a symbol of the bourgeoisie culture that Zionism

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07 rejected, and as a leisure activity mainly for women, who were already marginalized

by the Zionist revolution. Still masculine Zionist project and feminine gardeningculture shared common ground and several mutual goals. Gardens were indirectlyintegrated into the green agricultural image of the Zionist settlement project. It was ameans of making the Hebrew towns look more rural, as the discussion of PatrickGeddes’s Plan for Tel Aviv will emphasize. Gardening work was also perceived as asubtler version of the New Hebrew agricultural work, and as a way of developing anative affinity between the local urban settlers, who would gain ownership of theland through their toil in growing vegetables in their own country. In light of theidentification of gardening with the Zionist ideology, private and public gardeningactivities were granted institutional support. Correspondingly, the promotion of alocal gardening culture became an element in the establishment of a culturalrepertoire that would encompass the diverse aspects of the Hebrew community’s lifein Palestine (Alon-Mozes & Amir, 2002).

Just as gardening was considered a marginal practice in the Zionist enterprise,women were also perceived to hold a secondary place in its settlement undertaking.‘‘Although Labor Zionism was ideologically committed to social equality, it did notconcern itself with the issue of women’s emancipation’’ (Izraeli, 1981, p. 89). Onlyseveral dozen women immigrated to Palestine during the first decade of the 20thcentury; at the end of the second immigration wave there were only several hundredwomen in the country (Shilo, 1980). They aspired to share every kind of occupationwith the men, including agricultural work, but were forced by the male-dominatedZionist leadership to settle for housework and the provision of services to thepredominantly male community (Izraeli, 1981, 1984; Katz & Neuman, 1996).According to Izraeli, hierarchy was determined according to productivity. Workthat produced marketable goods was preferred above work that was perceived to benon-productive, such as domestic chores. Agriculture, and especially field work,gained the highest status, while cooking was perceived as the lowest. The status atwork determined the social status, participation in the communal life and therelationships among the group members. As a consequence of their inferioreconomic value in the labor market, women were marginalized within the group(Izraeli, 1981).

Women’s Contribution to the Creation of a Gardening Culture in Rural

and Urban Palestine

First Steps: Women and Agriculture Work

And for us too, the young women, this was the beginning of a new period. Ourmale comrades will be our only neighbors. Their life and ours will flow alongseparate paths. We are receiving a separate plot of land that will be solely forour use, cultivated according to our wishes and abilities. A period of splendor,what emancipation! (S. Blumstein, a worker in the Kinneret women’s farm,quoted in Izraeli, 1981, p. 95)

Pioneer women immigrating to Palestine in the second wave of immigration (1902)regarded agricultural work as a means of self-fulfillment, highlighting their

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07 importance as human beings and their independence from men. While in the mixed

working groups women were forced into service work, independent women’s groupsthat were established near the Sea of Galilee (Kinneret) marked the change. TheManya Schochat group of 1908, and especially the Hana Meizel vegetable gardengroup of 1909 proved to be fruitful channels for women’s employment and success inagricultural work (Izraeli, 1981, p. 95).

Another shift occurred after the First World War, with the Zionist establishment’sadoption of the mixed farm model as a more suitable one for the ‘New Hebrew farm’in Palestine. The model, demonstrated women’s advantage in certain branches ofsuch a farm—vegetable growing, dairy farming, and beekeeping (Shilo, 1988, 1995).Consequently, this approach, which was based on pragmatic economic considera-tions, paved the way for the integration of women into agricultural work, and helpedlegitimize gardening as a privileged occupation for both pioneer women and urbangardeners.

The institutional decisions were advocated by women activists, who found themiddle ground between the realization of their feminist goals and achieving generalpublic recognition. Hana Meisel (1883 – 1972), one of the first pioneer womeninvolved in the feminist struggle to integrate women into local agriculture,understood that her goals would be achieved only if they coincided with the goalsof the political establishment (Berg, 2001). She founded agricultural traininginstitutions for women: the farm for young women in Kinneret (1911) and theagricultural school for girls in Nahalal (1926). The schooling in these institutions,especially in the latter, emphasized the aspects of women’s agricultural work thatcould contribute to the family economy (Shilo, 1980). These aspects were alsoemphasized in her later publications.

If we don’t create a bond between women and farm life through appropriateeducation, they will be the first to move the family to the city . . . and all ourefforts to create a healthy farm community will fail. The woman is the one whocreates the character and the spirit of the home, leaving her mark on whatevershe does. If we want to raise generations that are loyal to our nation, we needgood New Hebrew mothers. We can’t nurture naturally rural generations,without mothers who have a natural bond to their farm and their garden.(Meisel, 1967, p. 11)

From Agriculture to Urban Farming

Hana Meisel aimed to train her students at the Kinneret farm to become self-sufficient through agricultural work. During the First World War, graduates of thefarm, together with women immigrants who had received agricultural training,established six farms throughout the country, which were managed by women(Bernstein, 1992). These farms comprised vegetable patches, nurseries, henhouses;and public kitchens where women provided hot meals mainly to male laborers(Figure 2). After the war, more farms were established throughout the country inorder to provide the women immigrants with work and agricultural training, and toprepare them for communal life. Between 1922 and 1926, 120 young womengraduated from these training farms (Bernstein, 1987), which became well known for

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their gardens and nurseries. They provided thousands of seedlings that pupils ofschools in Tel Aviv planted on Tu Bishvat (Arbor Day) (Tel Aviv MunicipalityArchive, file 2657b, 1938), and also provided the seedlings for the planting of theJerusalem local forest (Yanait Ben-Zvi, 1963). Additionally, the farms were involvedin promoting gardening culture. In Tel Aviv, the students earned their living byselling flowers to the urban housekeepers, and in Jerusalem they cultivated municipaland private gardens in order to support the farm. These activities marked thebeginning of cooperation between women farmers and urban housewives.Agriculture and gardening cultures, previously restricted only to the rural settle-ments or to a limited number of bourgeois neighborhoods, were thus introduced intothe urban landscape, sowing the seeds of the utilitarian garden as the commonHebrew garden in the city soil.

Between Agriculture and Gardening

While today there is a clear distinction between agricultural work and gardeningwork, in early 20th-century Palestine, the boundaries between the two occupationswere blurred. Agriculture and gardening work were taught in the same vocationalschool. In Palestine, this was the Mikve-Israel agricultural school, which wasestablished in 1870, and taught its students both agriculture and gardening.4 Inparallel, in European institutions like the Israelitische Gartenbauschule Ahlem, Jewish

Figure 2. Women’s farm, Dvar Hapoelet magazine (25 August 1935).

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(Enis, 1998).5 Furthermore, the first gardens in the Hebrew towns of Palestine wereplanted by agriculturalists whose dominant role in the area of gardening wascriticized by the emerging community of gardener-architects that settled in Palestineby the early 1920s.6 However, this ambiguity reflected the emerging concept of theutilitarian garden as a model for the modern garden design. The ideas of the Germanlandscape architect Librechet Migge and others were relatively influential on thelocal practice, as exemplified by the planning of the northern town of Nahariya.7

Here, in the urban settlement, as in the mixed farm rural settlements, agriculturalplots were situated next to the family dwellings.

Women and Gardening Culture in the City

‘Garden making’ stories spice many of the memoirs of the first settlers of Tel Avivand other places from the early 1900s. Like Nahum Gutman’s portrayal of MrsBerger nurturing her garden, other writers also emphasize the attempts of theEuropean Hebrew immigrants to cast roots in their old-new homeland throughgarden work (Alper, 1957; Sharira, 1979; Ravau-Katinsky, 1973). However, all theseexamples were small private enterprises that hardly influenced the public domain.Furthermore, these gardens were nurtured by middle-class women who perceivedgardening work as part of the housewife’s traditional role. In general, at thebeginning of the 20th century, gardening culture in the Hebrew urban settlementswas in its initial phase.

The change at the municipal level started as Patrick Geddes, the Scottish urbanplanner, was invited in 1925 to prepare a master plan for the city of Tel Aviv. Heenvisioned it as a flowering garden city, well known for its fruit trees.

To ‘sit under one’s vine and fig tree’ is one of the most definitive images alike ofthe ancient Bible and of the mind of the modern Zionist settler, while to convertthis into reality is one of the easiest and speediest of all biblical counsels ofperfection. (Geddes, 1925, p. 47)

The core of his plan was the urban block, with its fruit garden in the front yard andvegetable patch in the back yard. In addition, Geddes wanted to establish allotmentson the city outskirts and to create botanical gardens, boulevards, and extensive parkswithin the city (Kallus, 1997).

Tel Aviv’s municipality had difficulty implementing this ‘green’ vision, due to lackof funding, problems of land ownership and the city’s priorities. Nevertheless,Zionist ideology supported the greening concept as a means of blurring the urbancharacter of the Hebrew city and making it more similar to the preferred ruralenvironment. Making the city green became the responsibility of its inhabitants, andnaturally, this task was assigned to those in charge of the household, namely, thewomen. However, the women who came to Palestine in the fourth wave ofimmigration (1924 – 1929) were mostly of urban background and had no preparationfor agricultural or gardening work.8 In small shacks surrounded by sand dunes, theyfound themselves burdened by young children, with no permanent jobs. The end ofthe economic crisis in 1925 found them almost starving. They were desperate for any

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07 guidance that would rescue them from the hardships of their daily life and the

unsettling experience of their immigration. Planting gardens was a perfect means ofovercoming both problems; greening the Hebrew town and solving the immigrants’economical difficulties.

The project was adopted by the ‘second wave of immigration’ pioneering women,such as Hana Meisel, Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi and Ada Meimon. Despite their will topractice agricultural work as a means of self-fulfillment as Zionist women, theyfound themselves serving as gardening instructors and collaborating with the moretraditional Zionist Women’s Organizations in Palestine and abroad.

These Zionist women’s organizations, which were established in the early 20thcentury concurrently in Europe, the United States and South America, were part ofa western phenomenon of promoting women’s status and professional training(Carmel-Hakim, 2003). Zionist women’s organizations desired to help Hebrewwomen create a Zionist home by acquiring creative and productive means tosupport their survival struggle. Their scope included education, home economics;law; health and welfare; and agricultural work (Greenberg & Herzog, 1978).‘‘Our ultimate dream was a Jewish farmer, and supporting him, his wife, trainedin agricultural work in the land of Israel’’ (Levita, 1974, in Greenberg & Herzog,1978).

The first of these organizations was the Kulturverband, the women’s Zionistorganization of Germany, which was established in 1907 and supported Meisel’sKinneret farm (Carmel-Hakim, 2003). When WIZO (Women’s International ZionistOrganization) was established in the early 1920s, it took responsibility overagricultural training, alongside its other activities. In 1927, WIZO established itseducational department and became the most prominent organization in thepromotion of home gardening, mainly among city housewives. As the consumers ofthis, trainees did not intend to become farmers, the guidance focused on the homegarden, including its utilitarian and decorative components. This shift fromagricultural work to home gardening corresponded to the traditional role ofwomen’s organizations and was therefore easily accepted by the organization’sleadership.

The Urban Gardens Project

The Urban Gardens Project was instituted in Tel Aviv in the late 1920s. Followingthe American and the English model of ‘traveling instruction’, WIZO instructorshelped the local housewives set up between 100 and 200 gardens next to their homesand to manage households that were struggling to make ends meet (Figure 3). Theinstructors were not satisfied with merely helping housewives create gardens, but alsostrived to educate and shape the character of women immigrants, and to promotetheir affinity to their new surroundings.

WIZO undertook the task of instruction and assistance both in towns andon farms, in order to bring people closer to nature, and to educate them inthe regular care of plants and animals, which is character-building anddevelops a sound mind and body. (Tel Aviv Municipality Archive, 4-2657, 11/7/43)

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It was a difficult beginning. The immigrant women, unaccustomed to manual labor,were skeptical and did not believe that anything would grow in the sand dunes(Rozia Yevin, Zionist Archive F-49 2945). The resistance gradually subsided when,alongside the training in gardening per se, women were taught how to make use oftheir garden produce, which made the endeavor more rewarding. Based on theproject’s success, it was extended to other towns as well. The experience accumulatedand the instructors from the different regions of the country formulated guidelinesand plans to maximize the economic value of the gardens, taking into accountclimatic and regional conditions, plot size, and available manpower. Specialattention was placed on planting a decorative garden in front of the house, basedon harmonious colors, accentuating the entrance into the home, combining perennialand seasonal flowers and taking into account a limited initial investment and lowmaintenance costs. The accumulated knowledge was translated into instructionguidelines and model schemes were published by the organization (Figure 4) (WIZO,1946).

School and Kindergarten Gardens

In light of the positive achievements in the private gardening project, its initiatorsconcluded that gardening activities for children could strengthen their affinity toagricultural work and to their new home. Tel Aviv Municipality, in collaborationwith the British mandate’s afforestation department and WIZO, initiated the schooland kindergarten garden project. It was first introduced in Tel Aviv, followed byother towns (Tel Aviv Municipality Archive, 4-2657a). In its first year (1928), 11gardens in kindergartens and nine in elementary schools where planted. Fifteen years

Figure 3. WIZO’s instructors in Tel Aviv (Zionist Archive, WIZO’s files).

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Figure 4. Urban gardens schemes (WIZO, 1946).

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07 later there were 31 gardens in kindergartens, and 25 in schools (Figure 5). In

addition, the municipality and WIZO established a central garden on a plot of 0.7hectares, where approximately 1000 pupils practiced gardening in small plots. Theschool garden project served several purposes: the teachers regarded gardening as aneducational activity that was parallel in importance to classroom learning andextended it to the maintenance of the schoolyard; the organization’s instructorsbelieved it would bring children and youths closer to agricultural work andencourage them to settle in agricultural communities in the future. The success of theenterprise prompted the Tel Aviv Municipality to approach the national educationalsystem in Jerusalem and propose to make gardening mandatory in schools.

Women and Gardening Culture in the Kibbutz

In parallel to the urban gardening projects of WIZO and women city dwellers, utilityand decorative gardens were created in the communal rural settlements ofPalestine—the Kibbutzim. These projects were partly supported by WIZO(especially during the 1930s) and mainly by the women inhabitants of thesesettlements.

The kibbutz, a model of agricultural settlement and a unique way of life, wasdeveloped in Palestine in the early 20th century. As a community based on principlesof collective sharing and equality, theoretically, the kibbutz should have offered its

Figure 5. Kindergarten’s garden in Jerusalem (Zionist Archive, WIZO’s files).

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07 female members the possibility of engaging in all types of work. However in practice,

and similarly to forms of communal living that preceded it, the kibbutz maintainedthe traditional division between men in productive work and women in service-related activities. This meant that women had an inferior status, which distancedthem from the local and the external power centers (Enis, 1993).

Planting gardens was not prioritized by the kibbutz leaders, although theenvironmental settings of the first kibbutzim were difficult. The first buildings werebuilt on rocky land, leaving the more fertile land for agricultural cultivation. One ofthe first settlers of Degania (the first kibbutz, founded in 1912) wrote:

We arrived at Um-Juni during the summertime. At 200 m below sea level, therewas heavy heat. There were no trees, only burnt grass. The air was full ofmosquitoes and it lay heavily between the mountains. The flat valley was like afiery tray. All around, everything was burnt brown. (Bertz, 1960)

Women took up this marginal niche, which was not considered productive andtherefore did not offer a high status. The following examples exemplify these claims.At the end of their workday, voluntarily, and out of a sense of vocation, women setout to improve the quality of life in the kibbutz and planted decorative gardens.Chava Schwartz urged her friends in Tel Yosef to grow perennials next to theirhouses. As part of a project she named ‘A Miniature Decoration’, she examined thesettlers’ attitude toward planting (Schwartz, 1931). Haya Kastelnitz (1883 – 1973),who was responsible for the communal planting in Kibbutz Degania, started theproject voluntarily, as a second job after working in the communal kitchen or in thedairy farm (Figure 6). In her memoirs, she recalls her concern about how she would beable to accomplish her duties late at night and wake up early to nurture her plants(Artzi, 1954).

In light of the need to ensure that all kibbutz activity, including decorativegardening, was economically profitable, several women gardeners undertook

Figure 6. Haya Kastelnitz (Degania A Archive).

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07 initiatives that had a potential for profit, such as growing decorative plants and

selling them to customers in the city markets.

I awoke at four o’clock every morning, picked the flowers and packed them forselling in Haifa. They were sold immediately . . . Besides the income, it made mehappy, as I brought flowers to the city housewives. (Artzi, 1954)

Lea Gur-Arieh (1890 – 1959) financed her daughter’s memorial garden by sellingflowers she grew in it (Zila Garden, Kiryat Anavim Archive, 21/5/1942).

As the kibbutzim became more established, decorative gardening became alegitimate occupation, alongside other occupations. Architects and landscapearchitects (mostly men) planned the open spaces on the kibbutzim; and localwomen, working under the professionals’ supervision, implemented these schemes.Elisheva Weinberg-Oren planted the gardens of Kibbutz Yagur, which her husbandhad designed.

While he had a comprehensive approach from a planning perspective, sheconquered the land bit by bit, as a result of perseverance and dedicated work.(Weinberg-Oren, 1965)

The Kibbutz Nurseries

From the very beginning, the plant nurseries were the women’s domain on thekibbutzim. Some 80% of the nursery workers at Ein Harod, which was founded in1924, were women, and they competed for the privilege of working therepermanently. To make it easier for them, the infant daycare center was also locatedwithin the nursery site (Lea Etz Haim file, Ein Harod Archive). Miriam Givol, whomanaged the nursery, defended women’s rights in this place of work:

We always remembered that we had to hold on to jobs for women; we werewilling to do hard physical work just to prevent the men from replacing us.(Miriam Givol file, Ein Harod archive, 1944)

In most of the kibbutzim, vegetable gardens were planted next to plant nurseries tomeet the needs of the community. This was a popular place of work for women, whowere supervised by WIZO instructors (Greenberg & Herzog, 1978)

Gardening Culture—Women Culture

The extent of the gardening project practiced by Jewish women in Palestine duringthe first half of the 20th century is difficult to estimate. A few hundred gardens werecultivated by city dwellers under the supervision of WIZO instructors. Most of themwere utility gardens, however, without neglecting decorative aspects. The projectgained extensive publicity both in the local and the global Jewish press, and severalneighborhoods turned gardening projects into the symbol of their identity and pride.In Kiryat Avoda, near Tel Aviv, a gardening committee helped the residents creategardens and make them profitable; it organized competitions among gardeners and

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07 published a monthly pamphlet (Kiryat Avoda Archive, Holon). In the mid-1930s,

the family home and its well-maintained garden became a social convention indifferent working-class, as well as bourgeois, neighborhoods.

The various benefits of the project led to its success. The gardens expanded thefamily’s food basket, reduced expenses and improved the appearance of the houseand yard.

In parallel, gardening became a source of empowerment for the women whopracticed it.

We, the women workers, like the men workers . . . primarily strive, throughwork, to become healthy in body and soul, and to achieve the same freedom,beauty, and wholeness of soul . . . in this way to rid ourselves, for once and forall, of the habits, the ways of life, and the way of thinking that we brought withus from the Diaspora. (Izraeli, 1984, p. 119)

Elisheva Weinberg-Oren, a senior gardener at Kibbutz Yagur and recipient of theprestigious Labor Award, appraised gardening work as:

. . . fully rewarding and constant activity, satisfaction arising from making andcreating out of a sense of vocation, embodied in a profession that can improvethe quality of life for human beings, strengthen the bond of a people with theland, and love of the homeland. (Weinberg-Oren, n.d.)

Through gardening, women developed a new perception of their body and self.Dress codes expressed these changes. While in the Kinneret farm Meisel’s studentswere still wearing long dresses, in Nahalal, the style had changed. Miriam Givol(1899 – 1986) recalled her rebellion against school when she sewed herself a pair ofpants during her first week of work. ‘‘It was a real revolution; after a month hadpassed there was no sign of dresses at work’’ (Miriam Givol, Ein Harod Archive,1944) (Figure 7). Women considered this change as a manifestation ofrejuvenation. Ruth Hashman, who cultivated a private garden in Kiryat Bialik,described it:

From a distance, one could not distinguish whether it was a woman or a girl—we were suddenly young. It was good, because our hearts were filled with newhopes of maybe really creating something new. (Hashman, 1984, p. 173)

An interesting contribution to this discussion is Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi’sobservation regarding the women working in the Kfar Ganim garden:

There was the group of women from the Galilee who were arranging theirvegetable plot at Ein Ganim. With their long white dresses of Arab fabric, theyseemed to me like nuns, like kohanot [female priests], bending in prayer as theyworked in the garden bed. (Kark, 2004, p. 139)

A few years later, the students in her nursery in Jerusalem were all dressed inpants.

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Gardening activity created solidarity and promoted a network of informal ties.Elisheva Weinberg-Oren defined the collegial relationship with other gardeners asfamily ties. For the immigrants who had left their families abroad, gardening workwas the basis for new connections.

These were brotherhood relationships. We shared the same troubles and joys.We were like one family, as one helped the other. I always left with my arms fullof seedlings, seeds, plantings and other things. (Kastelnitz, 1977)

Casual encounters helped expand the plant inventory through the exchange ofseedlings, cuttings, and professional knowledge. Thus, the traditional women’spractice of exchanging information and objects became a vehicle for disseminatingplants and knowledge.

Figure 7. Women gardeners as photographed in Dvar Hapoelet magazine (3 May 1939).

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arrived in the country after having studied agriculture or gardening in Europeaneducational institutions, as part of their preparation for agricultural work inPalestine (for example, Rachel Yannait Ben-Zvi had studied agronomy both inRussia and in France; Hana Meisel had studied in Berlin, and elsewhere. Others hadbeen trained according to the usual practice in bourgeois European homes). Forexample, Lea Etz-Hayim, who worked as a trainee in the Kaiser garden in Potsdam,wrote ‘‘I was sure that I would marry a rich estate owner as was customary, and theywere used to cultivating their gardens by themselves’’ (Etz-Hayim, 1965).

The urban housewives coached by WIZO instructors were also a heterogeneousgroup, representing the various classes of the European Jewish city dwellers. Thus,gardening became a common ground for varied segments of the population: both ofmiddle-class or working-class origin. The exchange of knowledge, seedlings, andrecipes for using the garden produce formed a basis for cooperation and a unifiedgroup identity. Consequently, it created a network of ties between neighbors andpartners in this pastime and hobby.

As previously mentioned, the contribution of women to the creation of theHebrew gardening culture in Palestine was primarily a practical one. With theimmigration of garden architects and the establishment of the profession oflandscape architecture, the division between men as planners and women asimplementers was solidified. Feyga Ilanit (1909 – 2002), who was a social activist,served as a member of the Israeli parliament and as in charge of gardening in herkibbutz, spent her entire gardening career working under the authority of thelandscape gardener, Yehiel Segal.

Although I was considered to be an assertive woman, I thought that a gardener-architect should prepare the general plan of the garden. Even an experiencedgardener with intuition and understanding, initiative, and good taste, cannotdecide alone on issues that are studied for years in gardening architectureschools. (Ilanit, 1981 – 1982)

Although WIZO’s instructors prepared planting schemes, their main job was toprovide practical guidance or implement the schemes.

In general, the project of agricultural education for women was influenced by theestablishment of similar institutions in Europe and the United States starting in thelate 19th century and gaining force after the First World War (Carmel-Hakim,2003). These institutions, which were first established in England, like the Swanleyschool that was founded in 1892; and later in Germany, Switzerland, and the UnitedStates, intended to qualify middle-class women to work in or manage ruralfarms. The fields of study in these institutions included gardening, and growingvegetables, flowers and fruit trees; beekeeping; raising poultry; dairy farms;home economics; pedology and pest control. The ‘traveling instructor’, a modeldeveloped for the education of women in the rural areas of the United States, servedas the guiding model for the local project. While some of the local instructorsstudied in these institutions, others visited them and reported to the local communityon the various activities of these institutions (Etinger, 1918; Gihar, 1938; Granovsky,1928).

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07 Summary and Discussion

Agriculture, Gardening, and Women’s Organizations

For the Hebrew women in Palestine, gardening work was an entry ticket into theexclusive club of the local agriculturists, but only as junior members. Although theZionist ideology called for equality, in practice, female settlers were barred fromtaking part in agricultural work and from modeling the public landscape. Gardeningwork, first in the ‘women’s farms’ and the ‘mixed farms’, and later in the urbanneighborhoods, was the women’s way of shaping their private and publicenvironments. The success of the project must be attributed to the interests sharedby the pioneer women (primarily, Hana Meisel) and the Zionist women’sorganizations, which, notwithstanding their conservative perceptions regarding therole of women, regarded agriculture and urban home gardening as a worthy practicefor the New Hebrew women of Palestine.

Women’s Gardening Culture in Palestine in a Broad Perspective

From the broad perspective of the accepted occupations for women at the beginningof the 20th century, the Hebrew gardening project is interesting in terms of itssimilarities with other ‘women’s’ occupations, as well as in its own uniquecomponents. As noted, gardening became a common occupation for middle- andupper-class western women in the 19th century, and the tendency in the Hebrewcommunity in Palestine followed the global trend. Therefore, it was natural forwestern middle-class Jewish women’s organizations to support such projects asMeisel’s school in Nahalal and the urban gardens project of their sisters in theLevant. The coverage of the Kinneret women’s farm and WIZO’s gardens in TelAviv, which were featured in WIZO publications abroad even more than in the localpress, exemplifies this claim (Figure 8).

Furthermore, the common model of middle-class women (WIZO) supporting theirworking-class sisters (Tel Aviv women gardeners) was preserved, as in other westerncultures.

However, the Hebrew gardening project was unique in some of its other aspects.Without a longstanding Hebrew gardening heritage, the local gardening culture hadto invent itself practically from scratch. Palestinian home gardens, which alreadydotted the local landscape, hardly served as role models for the Zionist gardens, asthe two populations were intentionally separated.9 Furthermore, no canonicalmodels of gardens or gardeners had yet matured. Unlike abroad, no distinguishedwoman gardener, like the American Beatrix Jones Farrand or the English GertrudeJekyll stood out in the local sphere. Moreover, women gardeners in Palestine usuallyrefrained from participating in the professional forums of garden planners, and evenfrom writing for their publications or relevant women-oriented literature.

The garden itself was characterized by its combination of utilitarian anddecorative components, emphasizing the former over the latter. In this respect, itwas more similar to America’s immigrant gardens than to the European, andespecially the English gardens. It owed its origin both to the experience of thecolonization of a new territory and to the influence of Zionist ideology, whichdictated—both overtly and covertly—the way to shape the local landscape. The ways

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in which it was similar to other gardens of emigre or colonizing societies is a subjectfor further research.

Women’s Gardening Culture in the Local Cultural Perspective

Like most of the Hebrew gardens of the early 20th century, which were hidden fromthe public eye (and therefore undocumented), women’s contribution to this field wasnever fully appreciated. Exposing women’s gardening culture reveals the Hebrewwomen’s ‘space of their own’, where they created environments of beauty,productivity, self-esteem, mutual help and friendship and modestly contributed tothe nation-building project. For many women, gardening became the means of‘casting roots’ in the new-old homeland. While most of these gardens remainedwithin the family domain, others provided women with an opportunity to enter the

Figure 8. ‘Pioneers and Helpers’, WIZO’s international publication (January 1928).

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07 community sphere by establishing gardens in schools and kindergartens, as well as in

kibbutzim. These small utility and decorative gardens were women’s contribution tothe cultural repertoire that the Zionist establishment aspired to create for theemerging Hebrew community in Palestine.

Notes

1 Various authors emphasize the masculine character of the Zionist colonization project. Sheila Katz

elaborates on this theme, and while analyzing the writings of the Marxist Zionist Ber Borochov argues:

‘‘By definition, this Marxist ‘productivity’ included predominantly ‘male’ forms of work that produced

material commodities and ignored or belittled domestic products of women and children. Women had

the choice to remain on the sidelines or become ‘men’’’ (Katz, 2003, p. 92). There is more about this

issue in Izraeli (1981).

2 The term gardening culture is used throughout this paper, as gardening is perceived not only as the act

of planting gardens, but rather as a complete cultural repertoire that includes the gardens, the writings

about these gardens, the people who were involved in the various phases of planting gardens and more.

3 The mutual contribution—women to gardening and gardening to women—has recently emerged as a

fascinating research subject, discussed mainly from feminist perspectives (Harris, 1994; Merchant, 1995;

Schenker, 2002; Sipe, 2003).

4 Mikve Israel was the first agricultural school that was established in Palestine for its Jewish population

(1870). Students practiced agricultural work in school and studied various topics, including gardening

(four of the first 12 students studied gardening). The school cultivated one of the first Jewish nurseries in

Palestine.

5 The Jewish Horticultural School in Ahlem was founded in 1893 in order to train Jewish students in

gardening and agricultural work. By 1932, more than 400 youths completed their studies in Ahlem.

Thirty-six of them immigrated to Palestine and 17 worked as gardeners (Enis, 1998, pp. 311 – 312).

6 Yehiel Segal, the first gardener architect of the Tel Aviv municipality, complained that his work was not

valued enough and that it could have been replaced by the work of non-professional agricultural

workers (Segal, 1953).

7 The ideas of Librechet Migge were adopted by the Agronomist Zelig Soskin who prepared the

agricultural plan for the settlement of German Jews immigrants in Nahariya (Oren, 1991).

8 Almost 70 000 people immigrated to Palestine during the fourth wave of immigration (1924 – 1928).

They came mainly from Eastern Europe, Russia and especially from Poland. Most members of this

immigration were of a middle-class background, shopkeepers and artisans. They came from small towns

with a little fortune and settled mainly in Tel Aviv.

9 Due to the separation between the two populations; the Palestinians and the Jewish immigrants,

especially in the urban centers, the local Palestinian Bustan was not accepted as an appropriate model

for the Hebrew garden. Its utilitarian role and its vegetal components were accepted, but not its design.

This rejection grew with the increasing tension between the two populations during the 1930s (Braudo,

1983; Alon-Mozes, 2002).

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