Page 23 - Kol Bogrei Habonim - Autumn 21

A CENTURY-OLD DREAM OF Development Co. in Karkur and adjacent
Rabia. Company directors had already gone
ALIYAH to Palestine, bringing with them army huts, a

tractor, various tools and agricultural
HAROLD STERNE implements. A large tract of land was leased
to nearby Arabs for farming, and a nursery of
REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM 4,000 olive and 1,600 almond trees was
THE EDINBURGH STAR, ISSUE 88, purchased. After boring a well 22 meters into
SEPTEMBER 2020, P. 18. the soil, the property finally yielded 3,000
https://www.edinburghstar.info/iss gallons of good fresh water.
ue/no-88/ The First London Achuzah Company's 1920
M family Annual Report of September 1, (exactly
y grandfather's
100 years ago) reported the colony's
costs, including new buildings, iron
originally
planned to make works, pumps, horses, olive, almond,
Aliyah in the 1920s — and eucalyptus trees to drain the
exactly 100 years ago — swamps, plus expenses for barley and
with the intention of settling wheat as well as labour and management
in a small kfar near costs. The Report sums up the
Binyamina named Karkur. company's progress by stating: "The
This is the story of Scottish Directors think that the shareholders will
and other British religious feel satisfied with the start made on their
Jews whose intense desire to live in the Holy behalf and... that very shortly the Colony will
Land led them to found institutions that be sufficiently developed to receive all those
would purchase land, sign up potential members who are prepared to go and make
pioneering families and brush aside all their permanent home there”.
obstacles to their goal of Aliyah.

My grandparents Harris and Hannah Simon
left Lithuania in 1906 and settled in
Edinburgh. Like many other transplanted
Lithuanian Jews, they dreamed of settling in
Palestine. Fortunately, their dream was
shared by others in Edinburgh, London, and
other cities. These pioneers-to-be formed a
limited liability company, The First London
Achuzah Company, to buy land and create a
farming community in the Land of Israel.

By 1920, The First London Achuzah
Company had already authorised 2000 shares Karkor – Early Days – photo: Gili Chaskin
at £25 each and had brought in £25,000,
purchasing land from the Palestine Land

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