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| '''Yosef Weitz''' ({{langx|he|יוסף ויץ}}; 1890–1972) was the director of the Land and Afforestation Department of the ] (JNF). From the 1930s, Weitz played a major role in acquiring land for the ], the pre-state Jewish community in the British Mandate of Palestine. | '''Yosef Weitz''' ({{langx|he|יוסף ויץ}}; 1890–1972) was the director of the Land and Afforestation Department of the ] (JNF). From the 1930s, Weitz played a major role in acquiring land for the ], the pre-state Jewish community in the British Mandate of Palestine. | ||
| In 1932, when Weitz joined the JNF, there were only 91,000 Jews in Palestine (about 10% of the population) who owned just 2% of the land. Weitz oversaw the program to purchase properties from absentee landlords and run the Palestinian tenant farmers off their land. However it soon became clear that the purchase of small lots of land would not even get close to fulfilling the ]' dream of |
In 1932, when Weitz joined the JNF, there were only 91,000 Jews in Palestine (about 10% of the population) who owned just 2% of the land. Weitz oversaw the program to purchase properties from absentee landlords and run the Palestinian tenant farmers off their land. However it soon became clear that the purchase of small lots of land would not even get close to fulfilling the ]' dream of re-establishing the Jewish state. Zionism as an idea existed for thousands of years for Jews to return to their indigenous homeland after diaspora and exile from the Land of Israel. Zionism also is arguably a fundamental part of the religion of Judaism as the Jewish people themselves are referred to as the 'People of Israel' in the Bible and many of their festivals and commandments are inherently tied to the land. Political Zionism is more recent but is the idea that Jews should be able to have a homeland to be safe after thousands of years of antisemitism and persecution throughout much of the world, including against Ashkenazi Jews in Europe through pogroms and the Holocaust, and also the ethnic cleansing of Jews and persecution in Arab lands, including in the Land of Israel itself. | ||
| He also became known as the "Father of the Forests"<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.kkl-jnf.org/third_decade_1921_1930/ |title=The Third Decade: 1921-1930 |access-date=1 March 2024 |website=]}}</ref> for his work in ], |
He also became known as the "Father of the Forests"<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.kkl-jnf.org/third_decade_1921_1930/ |title=The Third Decade: 1921-1930 |access-date=1 March 2024 |website=]}}</ref> for his work in ], and improving the environment in the Land of Israel. | ||
| ==Early years== | ==Early years== | ||
| Line 15: | Line 15: | ||
| ==Vision== | ==Vision== | ||
| During the 1948 War of Independence, declared on the newly-re-established Jewish state by several neighbouring Arab armies in an attempt to destroy the state, and in many instances, rid the land of Jews, some hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled the land, and in some cases were expelled by Jewish militias. Many fled the land due to encouragement from the invading Arab armies who promised an easier victory without their presence, while in some cases they fled to escape war. Some were expelled by Jewish militias however this mostly occurred in villages that were hostile to the Jewish state and its Jewish communities. Weitz firmly believed that Israel should not allow the Arab refugees to return. | |||
| ] on a visit to ], 1938]] | |||
| In 20 December 1940, Weitz wrote in his diary: | |||
| :''"It should be clear to us that there is no room in Palestine for these two peoples. No 'development' will bring us to our goal of independent nationhood in this small country. Without the ], the land will become wide and spacious for us; with the Arabs, the land will remain sparse and cramped... The only solution is Palestine, at least ], without Arabs. There is no room here for compromises!... The way is to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighbouring countries, all of them, except perhaps those from ], ] and the ].'' | |||
| :''Not one village, not one tribe should be left. And the form of the transfer needs to be the creation of a refuge for them in ], in ] and even in ]. | |||
| :''There is no other way out."'' <ref name=Simons/> | |||
| In the middle of 1941, Weitz began to develop a plan for the practical realisation of Arab transfer. Between 22 June and 10 July, he wrote: | |||
| :''"From now on it is necessary to work on a secret but fundamental plan '''' the Arabs from here which would be implemented under the supervision of an American—Anglo committee."'' | |||
| :''"Our redemption will come only if the land is vacated for us."'' <ref name=Simons>Simons, Chaim, ]''.</ref> | |||
| During the ], ] from the newly created Jewish state. Weitz firmly believed that Israel should not allow them to return, and he convinced Israeli leaders ] in order to prevent the return of the ].<ref name="Maltz"/> | |||
| ==Public service career== | ==Public service career== | ||
| As head of the ] Forestry Department, Weitz put his visions of ] as a forested country into practice. He wanted to plant millions of trees |
As head of the ] Forestry Department, Weitz put his visions of ] as a forested country into practice. He wanted to plant millions of trees. | ||
| On April 18, 1948, Weitz wrote about the list of villages he wanted to be ethnically cleansed first: | |||
| :''"I made a summary of a list of the Arab villages which in my opinion must be cleared out in order to complete Jewish regions. I also made a summary of the places that have land disputes and must be settled by military means."'' | |||
| He was spurred on by ], who told Weitz he wanted a billion trees planted within a decade. In 1949, he proposed a division of labor between the Israeli government and the JNF. The government would engage in applied research in planting techniques, especially in arid areas, and the development of a ]. It would also establish plant nurseries. The JNF would improve indigenous forests, work in afforestation of hilly regions, stop the encroachment of sand dunes and plant windbreakers. Weitz saw plant nurseries and afforestation as a vital source of employment for the masses of ] arriving in the early days of the state. He was guided by the belief that developing a ] was imperative for acculturation.<ref name="alontal" /> | |||
| In 1966, ] in the ] was planted at Weitz's urging. He "envisioned rolling back the desert with trees, creating a security zone for the people of Israel".<ref>, ].</ref><!-- permanent dead link<ref>http://bustan.org/TIMELINE%20-%20%20WEB.pdf{{dead link|date=July 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> --> Named for the biblical town of ], it is now Israel's largest planted forest.<ref name="jpost-jnf">{{cite web|url=http://www.jpost.com/GreenIsrael/TOURSANDEVENTSINNATURE/Article.aspx?id=165788|title=Beersheba River Park with KKL-JNF on World Environment Day|author=Jewish National Fund|author-link=Jewish National Fund|publisher=]|date=February 22, 2010|access-date=2010-06-11}}</ref> | |||
| Weitz's forestry strategy emphasized the economic utility of forests and the importance of the ] as the hardiest of local species. As a result, Israel’s forests for its first twenty years were largely ]s and were later affected by natural ]. Weitz frequently clashed with the nascent ] which objected to the Jewish National Fund's approach to tree planting, such as pine tree plantations on ] which threatened an endemic plant, '']'' (also known as Iris Gilboa).<ref name=Trees>Tal, Alon. {{Google books|LRT7AAAAQBAJ|All the Trees of the Forest: Israel's Woodlands from the Bible to the Present|page=260}}</ref> | Weitz's forestry strategy emphasized the economic utility of forests and the importance of the ] as the hardiest of local species. As a result, Israel’s forests for its first twenty years were largely ]s and were later affected by natural ]. Weitz frequently clashed with the nascent ] which objected to the Jewish National Fund's approach to tree planting, such as pine tree plantations on ] which threatened an endemic plant, '']'' (also known as Iris Gilboa).<ref name=Trees>Tal, Alon. {{Google books|LRT7AAAAQBAJ|All the Trees of the Forest: Israel's Woodlands from the Bible to the Present|page=260}}</ref> | ||
| ==Views and opinions== | |||
| Weitz was an advocate of ]. As the ] unfolded, he confided to his diary in April that he had drawn up a list of Arab villages to be ] to enable Jewish settlement, and had also drawn up a list of land disputes with Arabs that he thought should be resolved by military means.<ref>{{harvnb|Pappé|2006|pp=61–64}}</ref> According to ]<ref>{{harvnb|Masalha|1992|p=188}}</ref> and Benny Morris<ref>{{cite book |first=Benny |last=Morris |title=The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited |date=2004 |page=312}}</ref> an unofficial ] was established in May 1948 composed of Weitz, ] and ]. Historian ] however, wrote that although Weitz spoke of establishing a transfer committee, Ben-Gurion rejected the idea, and no such committee was ever established.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Benny Morris and the Reign of Error |url=http://www.meforum.org/article/466 |author-link=Efraim Karsh |first=Efraim |last=Karsh |date=March 1999 |journal=Middle East Quarterly |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=15–28 |access-date= 1 March 2024}}</ref> | |||
| In his capacity as director of the Forestry Department, he initiated projects to destroy Arab property, ordering personnel to create obstacles for Arabs attempting to return to cultivate their fields, to destroy villages, and to render habitable other villages in order to enable Jewish settlement. He had discussed these activities with ] on June 8, and according to his diary, gained the latter's approval.<ref>{{harvnb|Morris|Kedar|2022|p=23 n.91}}</ref> On June 22, 1941 he wrote in his diary: "The land of Israel is not small at all, if only the Arabs were removed, and its frontiers enlarged a little, to the north up to the ], and to the east including the ]...with the Arabs transferred to northern Syria and Iraq...Today we have no other alternative...We will not live here with Arabs."<ref>{{harvnb|Masalha|1992|pp=134–135}}</ref> | |||
| With regard to the problem of ] endeavouring to return later in 1948, Weitz suggested to Ben-Gurion on September 26 that a policy of relentless harassment (''hatrada'') by every available means was necessary in order to quash any such return.<ref>{{harvnb|Morris|Kedar|2022|p=16}}</ref> | |||
| ==Commemoration== | ==Commemoration== | ||
| Line 53: | Line 26: | ||
| ==Movie== | ==Movie== | ||
| Weitz’ great-granddaughter Michal Weits made a ] about Yosef Weitz, ''Blue Box'' |
Weitz’ great-granddaughter Michal Weits made a ] about Yosef Weitz, ''Blue Box''. | ||
| ==Published works== | ==Published works== | ||
| Line 62: | Line 35: | ||
| * ''Creating a Land Legacy - Chapters from a Diary,'' Tel Aviv, 1951 | * ''Creating a Land Legacy - Chapters from a Diary,'' Tel Aviv, 1951 | ||
| *''Our Settlement Activities in a Period of Storm and Stress, 1936-1947,'' Tel Aviv, 1947 | *''Our Settlement Activities in a Period of Storm and Stress, 1936-1947,'' Tel Aviv, 1947 | ||
| ==See also== | |||
| *] | |||
| ==References== | |||
| {{Reflist|2|refs= | |||
| <ref name="alontal">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AAuy4ItfBVoC&pg=PA89 |title=Pollution in a promised land: An environmental history of Israel |first=Alon |last=Tal |page=89 |date=2002 |isbn=0520224426}}</ref> | |||
| }} | |||
| ==Bibliography== | |||
| * {{cite book |author-link=Nur Masalha |first=Nur |last=Masalha |date=1992|url=https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/7572869/mod_resource/content/1/Nur%20Masalha%20-%20Expulsion%20of%20the%20Palestinians%20-%20The%20Concept%20of%20Transfer%20in%20Zionist%20Political%20Thought%2C%201882-1948.pdf |title=Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of "Transfer" in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948 |publisher=Institute for Palestine Studies |isbn=0-88728-235-0}} | |||
| * {{cite book |author-link=Benny Morris |first=Benny |last=Morris |title=] |date=1994 |chapter=Chapter 4: Yosef Weitz and the Transfer Committees, 1948-1949 |isbn=9780198279297}} | |||
| * {{cite journal |author-link1=Benny Morris |author-first1=Benny |author-last1=Morris |author-link2=Benjamin Z. Kedar |author-first2=Benjamin Z. |author-last2=Kedar |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2022.2122448 |title=‘Cast thy bread’: Israeli biological warfare during the 1948 War |journal=] |date=19 September 2022 |page=23 n.91 |volume=59 |issue=5 |doi=10.1080/00263206.2022.2122448}} | |||
| * {{cite book |author-link=Ilan Pappé |first=Ilan |last=Pappé |title=] |date=2006 |isbn=9781851684670}} | |||
| * {{cite book |author-link=Tom Segev |first=Tom |last=Segev |title=1949, The First Israelis |location=New York |publisher=The Free Press |date=1986 |pages=29–30 |isbn=9780029291801}} | |||
| * {{cite book |author-link=Alon Tal |first=Alon |last=Tal |title=Pollution in a Promised Land, An Environmental History of Israel |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |date=2002}} | |||
| ==External links== | ==External links== | ||
Revision as of 22:23, 27 December 2024
Israeli civil servant
Yosef Weitz (Hebrew: יוסף ויץ; 1890–1972) was the director of the Land and Afforestation Department of the Jewish National Fund (JNF). From the 1930s, Weitz played a major role in acquiring land for the Yishuv, the pre-state Jewish community in the British Mandate of Palestine.
In 1932, when Weitz joined the JNF, there were only 91,000 Jews in Palestine (about 10% of the population) who owned just 2% of the land. Weitz oversaw the program to purchase properties from absentee landlords and run the Palestinian tenant farmers off their land. However it soon became clear that the purchase of small lots of land would not even get close to fulfilling the Zionists' dream of re-establishing the Jewish state. Zionism as an idea existed for thousands of years for Jews to return to their indigenous homeland after diaspora and exile from the Land of Israel. Zionism also is arguably a fundamental part of the religion of Judaism as the Jewish people themselves are referred to as the 'People of Israel' in the Bible and many of their festivals and commandments are inherently tied to the land. Political Zionism is more recent but is the idea that Jews should be able to have a homeland to be safe after thousands of years of antisemitism and persecution throughout much of the world, including against Ashkenazi Jews in Europe through pogroms and the Holocaust, and also the ethnic cleansing of Jews and persecution in Arab lands, including in the Land of Israel itself.
He also became known as the "Father of the Forests" for his work in afforestation, and improving the environment in the Land of Israel.
Early years
Yosef Weitz was born in Boremel, Volhynia in the Russian Empire in 1890. In 1908, he immigrated to Palestine with his sister, Miriam, and found employment as a watchman and an agricultural laborer in Rehovot. In 1911, he was one of the organizers of the Union of Agricultural Laborers in Eretz Yisrael. Weitz married Ruhama and their eldest son, Ra'anan, was born in 1913. Two years later, in 1915, Yosef Weitz was appointed foreman of the Sejera training farm (now Ilaniya) in the Lower Galilee. Weitz helped to found Yavniel, one of the first pioneer colonies in the Galilee, and later, the Beit Hakerem neighborhood in Jerusalem. His son Yehiam (Hebrew for "long live the nation"), born in Yavne'el in October 1918, was killed in a Palmach operation known as the Night of the Bridges on June 16, 1946. Kibbutz Yehi'am was established in his memory. Sharon Weitz, another son, followed in his father's footsteps and later took over as director of the Forestry Department.
Vision
During the 1948 War of Independence, declared on the newly-re-established Jewish state by several neighbouring Arab armies in an attempt to destroy the state, and in many instances, rid the land of Jews, some hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled the land, and in some cases were expelled by Jewish militias. Many fled the land due to encouragement from the invading Arab armies who promised an easier victory without their presence, while in some cases they fled to escape war. Some were expelled by Jewish militias however this mostly occurred in villages that were hostile to the Jewish state and its Jewish communities. Weitz firmly believed that Israel should not allow the Arab refugees to return.
Public service career
As head of the JNF Forestry Department, Weitz put his visions of Israel as a forested country into practice. He wanted to plant millions of trees.
Weitz's forestry strategy emphasized the economic utility of forests and the importance of the Aleppo pine as the hardiest of local species. As a result, Israel’s forests for its first twenty years were largely monocultures and were later affected by natural pests. Weitz frequently clashed with the nascent conservation movement which objected to the Jewish National Fund's approach to tree planting, such as pine tree plantations on Mount Gilboa which threatened an endemic plant, Iris haynei (also known as Iris Gilboa).
Commemoration
The Ma'ale Yosef Regional Council and Moshav Talmei Yosef are named for Yosef Weitz.
Movie
Weitz’ great-granddaughter Michal Weits made a documentary film about Yosef Weitz, Blue Box.
Published works
- My Diary and Letters to the Children, vols 1-6, Masada, Ramat Gan, 1965, 1973 (the original diaries are in the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem).
- HaYa'ar V'haYiur B'Yisrael (The Forest and Forestry in Israel), Masada, Ramat Gan, 1970 p. 140-141.
- Journal entry from June 26, 1946 published in Tlamim Ahronim, Jerusalem, Keren Kayemet, 1974, p. 24-25.
- From Small to Large - The History of Land Reclamation in Eretz-Israel, Ramat Gan, 1972
- Creating a Land Legacy - Chapters from a Diary, Tel Aviv, 1951
- Our Settlement Activities in a Period of Storm and Stress, 1936-1947, Tel Aviv, 1947
External links
- "The Third Decade: 1921-1930". KKl-JNF. Retrieved 1 March 2024.
- "Weitz, Joseph". Encyclopedia Judaica. Vol. 16. Keter. 1972. p. 421.
- Segev, Tom (2007). 1967, Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East. Metropolitan Books. ISBN 0-8050-7057-5. Archived from the original on 1 July 2007.
- Cite error: The named reference
alontalwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - Tal, Alon. All the Trees of the Forest: Israel's Woodlands from the Bible to the Present, p. 260, at Google Books