Zionist Arabesques: Modern Landscapes, Non-Modern Texts

226 Pages·2010·0.96 MB·English

by  Hadas Yaron

The Field, the Ethnography and the Anthropologist • 1
Zionist Arabesques:

Modern Landscapes, Non-Modern Texts
2 • introduction
ISRAEL: SOCIETY, CULTURE, AND HISTORY
Series Editor:
Yaacov Yadgar, Political Studies, Bar-Ilan University
Editorial Board:
Alan Dowty, Political Science and Middle EasternStudies, University of Notre Dame
Tamar Katriel, Communication Ethnography, University of Haifa
Avi Sagi, Hermeneutics, Cultural studies, and Philosophy, Bar-Ilan University
Allan Silver, Sociology, Columbia University
Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism and Ethnicity, London School of Economics
Yael Zerubavel, Jewish Studies and History, Rutgers University
The Field, the Ethnography and the Anthropologist • 3
Zionist Arabesques:

Modern Landscapes, Non-Modern Texts
Hadas Yaron
Boston 2010
4 • introduction
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Yaron, Hadas.
Zionist arabesques : modern landscapes, non-modern texts / Hadas Yaron.
p. cm. -- (Israel : society, culture and history)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-934843-78-9 (hardback)
1. Jews--Colonization--Israel--Esdraelon, Plain of--History--20th century. 2. Jews--
Agriculture--Israel--Esdraelon, Plain of--History--20th century. 3. Agriculture--Palestine-
-History--20th century. 4. Agriculture--Israel--Esdraelon, Plain of--History--20th century.
5. Agriculture, Cooperative--Palestine--History--20th century. 6. Kibbutzim--Israel--
Esdraelon, Plain of--History. 7. Collective settlements--Israel--History--20th century. 8.
Labor Zionism--Palestine--History--20th century. 9. Esdraelon, Plain of (Israel)--History--
20th century. I. Title.
HD1516.I75Y37 2010
956.94'5--dc22
2010022360
Copyright © 2010 Academic Studies Press
All rights reserved
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On the cover: Farid Abu Shakra. Ornament. 2005
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www.academicstudiespress.com
The Field, the Ethnography and the Anthropologist • 5
In memory of my mother, Sara
6 • introduction
Notes on transliteration, translation and archives
The transliteration of the Hebrew words in this book is based on the
Library of Congress database. Certain names of people and places follow
their spelling as specifi ed in academic and other offi cial publications or as
they appear on the world-wide web. Words which could not be found in
the Library of Congress database are written according to their sound. The
translation of quotes either from the fi eld or archives follows as closely as
possible not only the meaning but also the style of the quotation.
The documents from the Public Records Offi ce which are quoted are
cited according to the details of the documents (the document, reference
number, date, correspondents) together with the number of the fi le. This
style follows one of the options suggested by the Public Records Offi ce.
The citation of the documents from the Public Records Offi ce, the Israel
State Archive and the Middle-East Centre St. Anthony’s College Oxford,
state the name of the document fi rst and the name of the archive and the
number of the fi le last. Documents from other archives state the name of the
archive fi rst followed by the details of the document. Certain documents
from Israeli archives include Hebrew letters which in this manuscript are
converted into numbers, or English letters. In certain cases I note that the
number as it appears in the original fi le is in fact a Hebrew letter. Years
which appear in Hebrew documents according to the Jewish calendar are
converted here according to the Latin one, although where the month
appears in its Hebrew form, I have written the name of the Hebrew month
as it appears in the original document.
The Field, the Ethnography and the Anthropologist • 7
Acknowledgements
This ethnography is the result of a long journey, and I am grateful to
all those who have assisted me throughout. I am indebted to Yael Navaro
Yashin at Cambridge University who followed the project from its early
beginnings, for her intellectual input and for her imaginative suggestions.
I also thank Paola Filippucci for her support in the project and for her
scholarly contribution. I wish to thank members at the department of
Social Anthropology at Cambridge University and particularly Nikolai
Scorin Chaikov as well as my colleagues for supporting the project and for
their input and backing especially Ozlem Biner and Tanya Richardson. I
am grateful to the Council for British research in the Levant and the Anglo
Jewish Association for supporting the research. I am grateful to my friend
Una Campbell who scrutinized this text, and ‘ironed’ it for me. I wish to
express gratitude to the many people who made this research possible in
the Jezreel valley, the people who opened their houses and their hearts to
me and to whom I owe this ethnography. Lastly, I wish to thank my family.
I wish to thank more than anyone my mother who taught me the love for
novels and for history and who made this journey a unique intellectual
and emotional experience for me, and to whom I dedicate this book.
8 • introduction
The Field, the Ethnography and the Anthropologist • 9
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Field, the Ethnography and the Anthropologist
...11
Chapter One: Conventional and Environmental Agriculture: The Modern, Anti
Modern and Non Modern Landscapes
...27
Chapter Two: From Europe to the Middle East: Blossoming the Desert,
Cultivating the Land of Israel
...83
Chapter Three: The State as a Plot: Who Owns the Land, Who Plans the
Landscape
...149
Conclusions: Writing the Ethnographic Text: The Power of Words
...201
Notes
...207
Works Cited
...213
Index
...223
10 • introduction