Jewish Emigration to Palestine: White Paper , Part V

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

SEPTEMBER 16, 1919                          

On September 16, 1919, Hitler issues his first written comment on the so-called Jewish Question.  In the statement, he defined the Jews as a race and not a religious community, characterized the effect of a Jewish presence as a “race-tuberculosis of the peoples,” and identified the initial goal of a German government to be discriminatory legislation against Jews. The “ultimate goal must definitely be the removal of the Jews altogether.” 

Hitler's years in Vienna (1908–1913) and his military service were important stages for his development of a comprehensive racist ideology.   Hitler had his hatred of Jews, which may have affected the 1920 proceedings in some way, against Jews, as that was the norm in those days.  Some Jews were paying attention and getting out of Germany, but not all did or could;  it was most complicated and expensive.                          

Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, declaring he would make the country "clean of Jews." The need for a haven in Eretz Yisrael became desperate.  Between 1929 and 1939, 250,000 Jewish refugees;  a quarter of a million people---came to Palestine.  Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933 following a series of electoral victories by the Nazi Party. He ruled absolutely until his death by suicide in April 1945.                                            

As the Nazi threat grew, the Zionists organized an immigration program, "YOUTH ALIYAH," to bring Jewish children out of Germany. This train left Berlin in 1935, filled with children on their way to Palestine.                                                                                        

Many of these refugees settled in the growing cities.  Others worked the land.  Swamps were drained, and barren soil turned into fertile farms.

Building villages, which are called settlements by some people for new halutszim was no simple matter.  If the immigrants were to spend weeks, or even days, at construction, they would be easy targets for Arab attack.                                   

The solution was to build each new village in one day!  The technique for doing this was called "stockade and tower" (Homah u-Migdal).  The night before a village was to be built, all the materials for it were collected and prepared at a nearby village.  At daybreak, all the equipment and structures were moved to the site.  by sunup, the watchtower would be standing.  by noon, the outer defense wall would be in place.  At twilight, a small farm was functioning---complete with cows and chickens. These were like American Wild West settlements of Pioneers, watchtower and all, looking out for attacking Indians and modern pre-fabricated homes.  Throughout the difficult years of the 1930s, Jews continued to build new settlements/ which were in fact villages.

                                             

Kibbutz Hanita, a "stockade and tower" settlement, founded in 1938, approximately 15 kilometres (9 miles) NE of Nahariya, it falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Asher Regional Council. In 2019 it had a population of 756, no longer a little village but a town.                                                 

 It was built in only one day in the Western Galilee!   Kibbutz Hanita was established on 21 March 1938, as part of the Tower and stockade operation during the 1936–39 Arab revolt. However, Hanita was a special project, the largest of the entire operation and led directly by Yitzhak Sadeh, a top military leader of the Yishuv (Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine).   Hanita was one of the new Jewish settlements established in the area, with an additional defensive role, as it sat directly on the border with Lebanon, which was at the time controlled by France. The establishment of Hanita was hailed as the most impressive action of the Tower and stockade operation:  it was in part captured on film, and became the subject of an opera.  

The land, most of it in swamp and ruin, laying fallow for almost 1,860 years, was being restored to health.  So were the Jewish people.  Palestine under the Turks had been a miserable place.  malaria and Tuberculosis were only 2 of the deadly diseases.  Just before WWI, and American woman named Henrietta Szold visited the country.  she was horrified by the poor health conditions.

When she returned to America, she organized the women's organization known as Hadassah  to improve health in Palestine.  Hadassah sent physicians and nurses to set up clinics and hospitals.  Hadassah established schools for physicians, dentists, and nurses.  It taught mothers how to take care of their children. 

                                             

A participant in a Hadassah program, this donkey brought fresh milk to children in all parts of Jerusalem.  today, the Hadassah organization continues to support quality health care in Israel, giving its name and financial backing to one of the country's finest hospitals.  

                                               

Within a few decades, Hadassah raised the health standard of Eretz Yisrael from among the worst to the finest in the whole Middle East.

The Jews were building for life---land, farms, health.  The Arabs were working to destroy---murder, looting, riots.  

The world situation was growing worse.  Adolf Hitler was rising in power.  Arab violence in Palestine was increasing.  The British picked the worst possible response to Arab violence:  they gave the Arabs everything they wanted.  (Isn't that about what it looks like the USA is about to do with Iran?  More appeasement?)     

Jewish women protest against the White Paper in Jerusalem. Photo source: United States Library of Congress.

In 1939, Great Britain issued a document called the "WHITE PAPER."  It stated that England intended to set up an independent state in Palestine with a permanent Arab majority.  Jewish immigration would be cut back to 15,000 people per year for 5 years.  Then Jewish immigration would be entirely shut off!  

In an attempt to quell the Arab Revolt of 1936-39, the British government declared a policy that became known as the White Paper of 1939. On the one hand it declared that the Jewish homeland would be created in Palestine in 10 years time, but it rejected the idea of partitioning Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, meaning that the Jews would be forced to live as a minority within an Arab state.

Albert Einstein and David ben Gurion, smiling on the outside but crying on the inside..old friends. Albert Einstein, a Jew, but not an Israeli citizen, was offered the presidency in 1952, but turned it down, stating: "I am deeply moved by the offer from our State of Israel, and at once saddened and ashamed that I cannot accept it. He stuck with his Theory of Relativity.

The Zionists throughout the world were appalled.  If the White Paper went into effect, there would never be a Jewish Homeland.  But before the Yishuv could organize against the White Paper, WWII broke out.  Germany rapidly conquered most of Europe.  Soon the only European nation standing against Hitler was GREAT BRITAIN.  All Jews had to support the battle against the Nazi murderers.  Yet, world Jewry could not accept British opposition to a Jewish settlement in Palestine. 

                                          

The attitude of the Jews of Palestine was stated by  David Ben-Gurion.  "We shall fight the war as if there were no White paper, and we shall fight the White Paper as if there were no war."  This final British response was the white Paper of 1939, which announced the plan to shut off Jewish immigration and create an Arab state in Palestine.  They had turned against the Jews 180 degrees.  

Resource:

A young Person's History of Israel, 2nd Edition, by David Bamberger

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanita

https://jewoughtaknow.com/the-white-paper-1939

  

Ecological Israelite Principals Over 3,000 years Old That Set the Stage For More

Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

                                                 Bountiful Israel Today

When Moses wrote Genesis 1:28) sometime between 1391 BCE to 1273 BCE "Be fruitful and multiply,  fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea,  over the bird in the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth," there was no ecology problem in existence.                                   

             Jewish aliyah in early days clearing the swamps

The land of Israel had been in the Ottoman Empire's hands for the last 400 years up to 1917 and had laid barren, a land of swamps, deserts and mosquitoes; almost uninhabitable.  We say it was waiting for the return of Jews who started returning in 1880 CE.  1948 was the birthday year for Israel, and things had started to improve.  

Ecology is a branch of biology concerning interactions among organisms and their biophysical environment, which includes both biotic and abiotic components. Precepts were already laid out for us by Moses from G-d to follow in connection with our land. 

                                                 

            Safed (Tzfat) where I lived, had a forest just outside the city. Safed was on top of a mountain where at night the sky was pitch          black and the stars were huge.  I planted a tree there, with help.  

Planting trees has had a special holiday called TuBishvat and  is literally 'New Year of the Trees'. In contemporary Israel, the day is celebrated as an ecological awareness day, and trees are planted in celebration.  Of the talmudic requirements for fruit trees which used Tu BiShvat as the cut-off date in the Hebrew calendar for calculating the age of a fruit-bearing tree, Orlah remains to this day in essentially the same form it had in talmudic times. In the Orthodox Jewish world, these practices are still observed today as part of Halacha, Jewish law. Fruit that ripened on a three-year-old tree before Tu BiShvat is considered orlah and is forbidden to eat, while fruit ripening on or after Tu BiShvat of the tree's third year is permitted. 

 The land was a promise to Abraham (e.g.,Genesis 12.7, but really throughout the Torah, The "promised land," a "land flowing with milk and honey" (Exodus 3.17) figures prominently in Jewish thinking (e.g., Psalm 137.1-6, Ezekiel 36.24) Moses, the great prophet, longed even just to see the promised land, as if it were a glimpse of heaven. (Deuteronomy 34.)

First of all, We were on a system of 7 with the 7th day a day of no work. This is the Sabbath.  This gave the land a rest as well as the people, for these people had no rest when enslaved in Egypt, but had to work every day of every year without a break.  

  Actually, the land could be bought and sold, but every 50 years it reverted to its "owners" or "inheritors."  The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine (G-d's) and you are but aliens and my tenants." (Leviticus 25.23) This verse clearly assumes that mankind is custodian or caretaker of land.  This is the law of Yovel, the Jubilee Year.  We are to teach that the land and freedom are Divine gifts and that ownership reverts to those to whom He wills it. (Chinuch).  

People get a respite every 7th year in their work in Israel.  Teachers get a sabbatical every 7th year of teaching and could use it for more education, travel, etc.  It may be so for other professions as well.  (update from my own experience). Israel  has been the only country in the world who does this.   Jews in the Land of Israel must take a year-long break from working the fields every seven years. A "sabbatical" has come to mean an extended absence in the career of an individual to fulfill some goal, e.g., writing a book or travelling extensively for research.

Some universities and other institutional employers of scientists, physicians, and academics offer the opportunity to qualify for paid sabbatical as an employee benefit, called sabbatical leave. Some companies offer unpaid sabbatical for people wanting to take career breaks; this is a growing trend in the United Kingdom, with 20% of companies having a career break policy, and a further 10% considering introducing one.  In British and Irish students' unions, particularly in higher education institutions, students can be elected to become sabbatical officers of their students' union, either taking a year out of their study (in the academic year following their election) or remaining at the institution for a year following completion of study.

The Jubilee (Hebrew: יובל‎ yōḇel; Yiddish: yoyvl) is the year at the end of seven cycles of shmita (Sabbatical years) and, according to biblical regulations, had a special impact on the ownership and management of land in the Land of Israel.  Every 50th year is the Jubilee Year.  It was a sanctified year that proclaimed freedom throughout the land for all its inhabitants.  Each man was to return to his ancestral heritage and each man was to return to his family.   We were not to sow nor harvest its aftergrowth and we were not to pick what was set aside of it for ourselves.  It was a holy year.  We could eat from the field the crop.  

                                                                         

                                                     Shar ha Makim Kibbutz

For 6 years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, and in the 7th, you shall leave it untended and unharvested, and the destitute of your people shall eat, and the wildlife of the field shall eat what I left, so shall you do to your vineyard and your olive grove.  6 days shall you do your activities, and on the 7th day you shall desist, so that your ox and donkey may be content and your servant's son and the traveler may be refreshed. (Exodus 23-10-12)

                                                       

                              Pomegranate  tree in Israel

The age of fruit trees was to be known, as people planted them.  They were not to eat the fruit of the tree until it was 5 years old.  At age 4, the fruit wasn't ready to be eaten but was to be sanctified to laud G-d. (Leviticus23).  We are not to destroy fruit-bearing trees in a war.  The principle is rooted in the Biblical law of (Deuteronomy 20:19–20). “When you lead a siege against a city many days … you may not destroy any tree of hers, to hew an ax against it, for from it you will eat, and you may not cut it off! Is the tree of the field a person, to come before you in the siege? Only a tree that you know is not a tree for food, that one you may destroy and cut off, and build siegeworks…” In the Bible, the command is said in the context of wartime and forbids the cutting down of fruit trees in order to assist in a siege. 

Land was not so much a commodity.  Rather, it was an inheritance for the Israelites and it was core to the covenantal promises that G-d made to them.  G-d's people are not to abuse their inheritance, but to treasure it.  It cannot be bought and sold. (Leviticus 25.)

Since 1948, most of the land of Israel belongs to the State or the Jewish National Fund.  It is not sold to the new villages but is leased, as a rule for 49 years.  Betterment by the Government and/or the Fund has made it possible to direct new villages to specific farming branches.  

The Torah, as our history tells us was written by Moses while on the Exodus, explained all this to us (see above).  The Midrash (finding new meaning in addition to the literal one in the Torah exemplifies the teaching with lessons.  

1. Take care not to spoil or destroy My world.  

      a. This brings to mind the work of Norman Lamm, "Ecology in Jewish Law and Theology."

     b. Eric G. Freudenstein, "Ecology and the Jewish Tradition."

     c. Jonathan I. Helfand, Ecology and the Jewish Tradition: A Postscript."

During Rabbinic Times of the Middle Ages, Waste disposal was a major problem.  Bit of broken glass on public land was known to cause injury.  Saintly men would bury their broken glassware deep down in their own fields.  Other rubbish could be deposited on public land, but only during the winter month when in any event the roads were a morass of mud due to the rains.  

Rabbinic concern for peaceful and clean environment brought out this rule:  a dovecot must not be kept within 50 cubits of a town and no one may keep a dovecot on his own property unless his land extends 50 cubits in every direction around it.  This was to keep the doves from eating seeds sown in the neighboring fields.  

If trees stood before a town grew up around them, they can be cut down, but the owner must be compensated for them.   Carcasses, graves, and tanneries must be kept at a distance of at least 50 cubits from the city.  

A tannery must not be set up in such a way that the prevailing winds can waft the unpleasant odor to the town. 

Goats or sheep must not be raised in the cultivated areas of the Land of Israel because of the damage that might be done to young plants. This one came about to encourage renewed agricultural growth after the devastations to the land caused by the wars with Rome.

"In contemporary Jewish ethics on Judaism and ecology, advocates often point to bal tashchit as an environmental principle. (Jewish vegetarians also point to bal tashchit as one justification for vegetarianism or veganism, arguing that eating meat and raising animals in general is wasteful.) Nevertheless, although bal tashchit may be broadly applied to environmental ethics, its limitation in the case where one may profit through a destructive act makes the application of the laws of bal tashchit to environmental issues complicated."  

There is the prohibition against destroying anything of value, "do not destroy," base on Deuteronomy 20:19, against destroying fruit-bearing trees, now extending to include all cases of wasting things that can be used. Maimonides wrote, "It is not only forbidden to destroy fruit-bearing trees but whoever breaks vessels, tears clothes, demolishes a building, stops up a fountain or wates food, in a  destructive way, offends against the law of "thou shalt not destroy."  This includes animals or even to cause the oil in a lamp to burn too quickly.   

                                                  

Israel had celebrated its 50th year in 1998. "The gala celebration will be broadcast on both major Israeli television channels and in many countries overseas. TV, in fact, may be the best way to watch. The Givat Ram stadium has only 12,000 seats, and 5,000 are reserved for invited guests from the world over, including Vice President Al Gore, as well as Israel's President Ezer Weizman, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials. Israel does have bigger stadiums, but organizers wanted Jerusalem, to drive home the point that this is the Israeli capital, even if most foreign governments have yet to recognize it. "

Among events in the fall will be a mass public assembly on Oct. 6 at the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem, intended to renew ''the ancient Jewish tradition of holding mass public gatherings at the temple once every seven years.'' Another event tied to the anniversary will be the Festival of Humor, Laughter and Satire in the Negev city of Beersheva Oct. 6 to 8. Events were going on all year long.  The next Jubilee year will be in 2048, only 28 more years from now.  May it be an amazingly peaceful one.  

Judaism affirms without reservation that the world is G-d's creation and that whoever helps to preserve it is doing G-d's work.  

Resource:

What Does Judaism Say About...? by Louis Jacobs

Tanakh, The Stone Edition

https://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/26/travel/a-50th-jubilee-for-israel.html

http://www.landwatch.org/pages/perspectives/christiansteward.htm 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bal_tashchit#:~:text=Only%20a%20tree%20that%20you,to%20assist%20in%20a%20siege.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_BiShvat#:~:text=It%20is%20also%20called%20Rosh,trees%20are%20planted%20in%20celebration.

Update 10/12/2020 -my experience

facts about Israel, Division of information, Ministry for foreign affairs, Jerusalem

Israel: Land Laying Wasted for 2,000 Years-Getting Developed Once Again

Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

1947 Plan of dividing the remaining land of Israel into a 2-State solution;
some for Jews and some for Arabs.  The Arabs refused to sign up for this.
They wanted all of it.  Jews took the deal; something better than nothing.  

The Jewish land of Israel is 260 miles long, 60 miles at the widest, and from 3 to 9 miles at 

the narrowest.  We're talking about a very small piece of real-estate.  

In this little space of Israel which is only 10% of the Promised Land, only 17% of it is arable.                                       

When Jews started returning to Eretz Israel in the late 1800s, they had to drain the land as so much was swampy or had become all desert.  
                                                         

Drainage of the Huleh Swamps

One way to get rid of all the mosquitoes
Drain the swamps with these thirsty trees

They planted eucalyptus trees to soak up the water.  They've
invented scientific ways of farming this impossible land for others, just waiting for the Jews' return.
Trees are continually being planted.  Never has so much been done to such undeveloped, impossible land.  
                                                         

Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 as a garden suburb of Jaffa and named after a book.  In World War I, the people of Tel Aviv were exiled by order of the Turks, as it was still part of the Ottoman Empire.  
                                                          

Tel Aviv, a city on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, is marked by stark 1930s Bauhaus buildings, thousands of which are clustered in the White City architectural area. Museums include Beit Hatfutsot, whose multimedia exhibits illustrate the history of Jewish communities worldwide. The Eretz Israel Museum covers the country’s archaeology, folklore and crafts, and features an on-site excavation of 12th-century-B.C. ruins.
The area (Metro)  population is 3,854,000
Tel Aviv itself has 429,515 

  It started to grow rapidly under the British Mandate, especially as Arab riots forced most Jews to leave Jaffa which was nearby.  By 1921 Tel Aviv became a separate town from Jaffa.  As a result of the 1936 Arab riots, a harbor was inaugurated; but had to close down in 1965.  In 1947-1948 in the War of Independence, fighting broke out between Tel Aviv and Arab Jaffa which ended with the capitulation of Jaffa on the eve of the Israel's birth:  May 13, 1948.  The state of Israel was proclaimed the next day, May 14, 1948 at Tel Aviv which remained the seat of the government and the Knesset until 1949. 

In the meantime, Jaffa had been abandoned by most of the Arabs and was resettled with new immigrants.  The 2 cities were amalgamated in 1949 under the name:  Tel Aviv-Jaffa.  By 1990 the population was 317,800, but the Tel Aviv with the outskirts contained more than twice that number.  It was the major target for Scud missiles launched from Iraq during the 1991 GULF WAR. 
                                                                           

Osmanli Donemi Yafa, Filistin

Jaffa in 1890; a city of the Ottoman Empire, Palestine

Jaffa was known in Biblical days and was mentioned in the Assyrian documents. It was here that Jonah sailed from Jaffa.   It had marked the boundary of the Philistines, although in theory it was within the tribal area of the tribe of Judah; Judean territory.  During King Solomon's reign, and again after the return of the Jews during the Babylonian captivity, the trees-cedars from Lebanon were floated to the sea of Jaffa on their way to Jerusalem.
                                                                                 

From Jaffa one could see Jerusalem 

  Unloading them may have been done north of Tel Aviv.  During the Persian period (Iran), Jaffa belonged to the Phoenicians.  Judah the Maccabee, our hero in our Chanukah history, had avenged the massacre of the Jewish community there.  His brothers, Jonathan and Simon, took Jaffa in the battle and replaced the foreign population with Jews.  Then it became an important Jewish port until the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE by the Romans.
Jaffa grew in size in the 19th Century  from the surrounding Jewish building of homes.    
                                                         

In 1946 the population had grown to 101,000 of which 30% were Jews.  Oranges were being exported from Jaffa.  

                                                      

Airport in Tel Aviv-Jaffa

First modern Jewish agricultural settlements in history of the Land of Israel

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                  

Jews have been living in Safed (Tzephat) , which is in the upper Galilee, for centuries.  It was mentioned by Josephus as the fortified village of Sepph.  Again, it was mentioned in the Talmud as one of the places where beacons were lit to mark the New Year being it's on top of a mountain with the height of 2,720 feet with the same altitude as Jerusalem, whose Mt. Zion is 2,816 feet high. The Zohar was written in the 2nd century, and Safed's soul included mysticism.   The Crusaders built a fortress there in 1140, and then it became Templar property in 1168.  Baybars destroyed it in 1266.  In Mameluke times, it was an administrative center and Jews already lived there in the 11th century. By the 16th century, it became a most important center of rabbinical and kabbalistic activity.  Rabbi Isaac Luria and his pupils lived here.  So did Rabbi Joseph Caro.

In 1837 there was a great earthquake and people of today have dug out homes from then and have refurbished them and live there.  In 1840 there were only 400 Jews. The Ottoman Empire didn't collapse till the end of WWI in 1917 when Germany lost the war.   By 1948 there were 12,000 Arabs and 1,800 Jews in Safed.  Even so, the Arabs fled after fighting started in 1948. Dov Silverman recorded many stories about that in his book, "Legends of Safed" copyright 1984.  One I love is "The Katushas and the 7 sons of Hannah.  Being that the Lebanese border was only 14 kilometers (8.6992 miles) away, Russian katusha rockets flew towards the city but always fell short.  The story was that Hanna and her 7 sons (who all died in the hands of the Greeks-part of the Maccabee revolt) were buried where katushas pass over and slowed down the rockets so that they fell in the wadi harmlessly.  .  
                                                                               

  Here I am with scarf, apartment building, red Fiat from Italy and my own German Shepherd, Blintz.

I moved there in 1981 to teach English at the junior high on Eleazar Street. By 1990 there were 16,400 population in the city.  It was known for its air and its mysticism as Tsfat, the mystical city.  This was a summer resort and had an art colony.  I was at home with my hobby of oil painting.  It had fir trees which reminded my of my Pacific Coast home town of Portland, Oregon.
                                                                             

Looking back in its history, I see that Rosh Pinnah is also in the Upper Galilee and was the first Palestinian Jewish agricultural settlement, founded in 1878 by a number of families of the Old Yishuv of Safed. (first Jewish settlers, original ones). Some of them had come from 1492's Spanish Inquisition.   They couldn't cope with the malaria, crop failures and the Arab attacks and finally abandoned the building they had put up and went back to Safed.  It was re founded in 1882 by the new Jewish immigrants called Bilu immigrants who mostly were Romanian Jews.  The Bilu were the first modern Zionist pioneering movement.  There had been a wave of Russian pogroms going on who left in reaction this.  There were several branches of bilu and had 525 members, but only a few dozen eventually went to Palestine.  The 1st group of 15 men and women reached Jaffa in the summer of 1882 and the others later that year.  This was the nucleus of the 1st Aliyah, so they endured many hardships.  Some had settled on the land in various colonies like in Rosh Pinnah.  Others had gone to Jerusalem to master handicrafts.  The came with visions of social reform.  Some settled in Gedera in 1884, helped by Jehiel Michael Pines.
                                                                     

Rosh Pinnah received help from  Baron Edmond de Rothschild who helped financially by paying workers even though they were failing in many agricultural experiments and a had population that had stagnated.  It had become a center for the scattered Jewish settlements in the Upper Galilee and absorbed new immigrants after the Israel War of Independence in 1948.  In 1990 it had a population of 1,590.  Today there are 2,800 people living there.

Needless to say, it was not easy bucking swamps that held mosquitoes and caused malaria.  The pioneers had to plant eucalyptus trees so soak up the water.  Arab attacks didn't help matters, either.  We don't realize all they endured while trying to re-establish Jewish life in Israel.

James Mitchener did, and wrote "The Source".  I loved the chapter of the Saintly Men of Safed, about how in 1600s rabbis lived in Safed and worked.  I wrote a play around it and we in Safed put on plays of which this was one.

Dov wrote on page 15 that "on Yom Kippur 1973, the souls of the people of Safed appeared before the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to be judged.  We stood as one before G-d, and we stood as one against our enemies.  On both occasions we proclaimed, "Hear oh Israel, The Lord Our G-d is One."  We must have been heard, as Israel survived that terrible war. Imagine, the Syrian forces were only 12 miles from the city. The casualties were coming into Safed's hospital in a steady stream.  Dov and a friend noticed that little kids kept busy throwing dirt under the cars on the way to the hospital and they asked them why there were doing that.  They explained that there was a hole in the road and they were trying to keep it level so the hurt soldiers on the way to the hospital wouldn't bounce in their cars.  Our souls are good!  

Resource:  The Settlers by Meyer Levin
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
 http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2014/03/portlands-rabbi-stampfer-and-his.html- Peta Tikva
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosh_Pinna
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safed
Letters From Israel by Nadene Goldfoot
http://www.nbn.org.il/component/content/article/1811-rosh-pina.html