The Jewish National Fund has built a…
1909 CE
The Jewish National Fund has built a worldwide fundraising organization in its first decade, based on sale of stamps, collection boxes in homes and schools and solicitation of donations.
Its first modest purchases are made in 1904 and 1908 in Lower Galilee, Judea, and the region around the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret) and a form of settlement that will prove crucial in the Zionist land-acquisition enterprise is pioneered there: the collective (kevutsa, later kibbutz).
A. D. Gordon and his political party, HaPoel HaTzair ("The Young Worker"), are a major force behind the movement to collectivize Jewish settlements in Palestine.
Gordon inspires other Jewish pioneers to establish Deganya (December 1909), Israel's first collective colony, or kibbutz.
Profits are reinvested in the settlement after members have been provided with food, clothing, and shelter and with social and medical services.
Adults have private quarters, but children are housed and cared for as a group.
Cooking and dining are in common.