After my father had built our house and planted our vineyard and olive grove, he felt the best way to show his gratitude to God, for all the mercies he had received since his first coming to Palestine, was to give a large “House Warming,” which would include not only the fifty odd families in our own colony, but people from the other colonies as well. So people from Jerusalem, and officials from Baron Rothschild’s colonies were invited. In fact our own fellow colonists felt that the event would be their thanksgiving as well as Rab Zorach Barnett’s. So everyone started to help prepare for it.