ABSTRACT
On the mantlepiece, on the table or in the cupboard, from 1905 onwards the blue collecting tin of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) appeared in more and more Jewish living rooms. People were expected to contribute around the time of festive events in the private sphere, or on Jewish holidays. Others filled the tin with coins week by week. The local JNF official would come round regularly to empty it. The money was used to buy land in Palestine so that Jewish settlements could be established there, the aim being to create ‘a strong Jewish farming community’ in what must become their own Jewish country, as the JNF put it in 1910.
