Page 42 - Kol Bogrei Habonim - Winter 20
P. 42
There was clearly a story behind the letter.
By 1912, those still in Glasgow had each paid
£18 to the Jewish Colonial Trust, but when
word got back how hard life was in the new
settlement, they were reluctant to follow and,
with typical Scottish/Jewish chutzpa, asked
Lewis Coorsh to write a letter to Arthur
Rupin requesting their money back… and
that is the story behind this letter.
Joseph Sunderland, one of the pioneers, was
Through the auspices of the Scottish Jewish sent back to Glasgow to present the case for
Archive Centre, I sourced a copy of a letter continued support, but it was sometime
written in Yiddish, dated 21st May, 1912. before there was sufficient money to build
It was written from Merhavia on ‘Glasgow houses.
Agudas Olei Zion’ headed notepaper, and A little more money was raised and a few
was signed by Lewis Coorsh, one of the four more pioneers came out, but the settlement
pioneers who had arrived the year before. It was unable to survive and was disbanded
was addressed to Arthur Rupin. Roughly shortly after the First World War.
translated, the letter asks Rupin to return to
him the sum of £13 from monies paid into the Perhaps the time was not quite ready for such
Anglo-Palestine Bank by ‘Glasgow Agudas a bold initiative, but it did set the stage for the
Olei Zion’. Kibbutz/Moshav initiative, which followed
some 10 years later.
In 1922, another pioneer turned up at
Merhavia – Golda Meyerson (Golda Meir)
and her husband Morris, who lived there for
a few years. In her autobiography, ‘My Life’,
Golda describes the still difficult conditions
of the early 1920s.
Golda’s
room at
Kibbutz
Merhavia
42
