ABSTRACT
One of the first Jewish schools of ‘modern’, as opposed to traditional, type to be established in Palestine (in 1870) was the Miqveh Israel 1 Agricultural School, about 2 miles east of Jaffa. That was before there was any agricultural settlement—Jews at that time were almost exclusively town-dwellers—and the aim of the school was to take boys from the towns and turn them into farmers. (Forty boys were taken, mostly from Jerusalem.) Fantastic, and, at first, not very successful—the Miqveh ‘graduates’ mostly got jobs as ‘officials of the Baron (Rothschild)’ or teachers or clerks. Yet, with the influx of immigration in the early ‘80’s, there is little doubt that the school helped in the establishment of the new agricultural ‘colonies’. Now a generation of boys, born on the soil (albeit of town-minded parents), came to Miqveh to learn modern methods; these did not become officials but went back to their ‘colonies’ to become efficient farmers. Already before the First World War, it was proved that agriculture could pay. Miqveh Israel is now nearing its centenary. There are now about 700 boys and girls, roughly one-half from towns, one-half from rural areas. Do they all continue in agriculture? Not all; that is one of the problems we shall have to discuss.
