Free My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel by Ari Shavit Page B

collective children’s homes are closed, and the collective spirit is gone. Just as the kibbutz rose, the kibbutz fell. So as I look out at the spring down below and at the mountain ridge casting its shadow, I realize it’s a spring-or-mountain question: Triumphant Gideon or defeated Saul? But my question is not yet answered as the dying light caresses the darkening Valley of Harod.
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    * A dunam is a traditional unit of land measurement representing the area that could be plowed in a day. It is approximately equivalent to a quarter of an acre.

THREE
Orange Grove, 1936
    O RANGES HAD BEEN P ALESTINE ’ S TRADEMARK FOR CENTURIES . I N THE 1850s, a new variety of orange was discovered in the citrus groves of Jaffa, and by 1890 the new Shamouti orange—large, oval, and juicy—had found its way to Queen Victoria’s table. By 1897, when Herbert Bentwich disembarked at the remote port of Jaffa, the same grizzled stevedores who took him ashore were already loading thousands of crates of Shamouti oranges (now called Jaffa oranges) each winter onto Liverpool-bound ships. After World War I, the new awareness of the virtues of vitamin C brought about a dramatic rise in the demand for citrus fruit throughout Europe. In 1925 there were only 30,000 dunams of citrus groves in Palestine; two years later there were nearly twice as many, and two years after that, by 1929, they had multiplied yet again to 87,000 dunams. By 1935 there were 280,000 dunams of citrus groves in Palestine. Within a decade, citrus growing in Palestine had risen almost tenfold. The small province, now under the British Mandate, had become a powerhouse of citrus export, so much so that in 1935, one-third of the oranges imported to Great Britain were Jaffa oranges.
    The colony of Rehovot discovered the virtues of citrus in the 1920s. Rehovot was founded in 1890 on 10,600 dunams of the Ottoman feudal estate of Duran, situated some fifteen miles southeast of Jaffa. After thebarren land was purchased and the Bedouins occupying it were evicted, it was taken over by Russian and Polish Jews hoping to find peace and plenty in the land of Israel. The settlers did well. Rehovot was a place where Orthodox and secular, rich and poor, Ashkenazi and Yemenite Jews lived side by side in relative harmony. Its Jewish inhabitants lived in peace with their Arab neighbors, too. By 1935 the rapidly growing colony of Rehovot was the most prosperous Jewish colony in Palestine, leading the citrus industry, which in turn was leading the country into an unprecedented boom.
    Rehovot and orange groves were a perfect match. Rehovot’s loamy red
hamra
soil suited the citrus trees because its unique combination of sand, silt, and clay holds plenty of moisture but also drains well, so that sufficient air can reach the trees’ delicate roots. Rehovot’s moderate climate was also well suited to the trees, since it was not too warm when the trees blossomed in spring and not too cold or windy in winter, when they bore fruit. Rehovot was rich with the water that the citrus trees badly needed, and it was close to the port of Jaffa. Rehovot embraced free-market principles, thrived on private enterprise, and had a cheap and efficient labor force provided by neighboring Arab villages. Rehovot also benefited from the cutting-edge scientific knowledge of the mostly German-Jewish agronomists working in its newly established agricultural institute. Those agronomists introduced the efficient Californian method of cultivation. Rehovot was where Western know-how, Arab labor, and laissez-faire economics merged to make the Jaffa orange a world-renowned brand. So while Europe and America were still in the grip of the Great Depression, Jaffa oranges and quickening immigration to Palestine made Rehovot prosper. And while hundreds of thousands of uprooted Jews couldn’t find a home in Europe or America, those who had chosen Rehovot were flourishing. In Rehovot of the early 1930s, the optimal conditions of