Page 371 - המהפכה הימית

Abstract

Within academic research on Zionist activity and settlement of the Land
of Israel in the modern era, the country’s sea and shores have not yet
received sufficient attention. This book’s goal is to broaden discussion
of the country’s maritime history by reconstructing and analyzing the
development of the Jewish Yishuv’s hold on the Mediterranean coast,
the Sea of Galilee, and the Hula Lake during the period of British rule.
This will be analyzed using four spheres of Jewish maritime activity:
ports, seamanship, fishing, and maritime education. In view of the
events that took place at that time, the proposed examination is divided
into four principal time periods.

The first chapter analyzes the initial ideas regarding an independent
Zionist maritime culture in the new Yishuv in the first half of the British
Mandate period. This analysis spans from the beginning of British rule
until the end of 1933, when the new port in Haifa was inaugurated
and a new era began in the Yishuv’s approach to the sea and its value.
During this period, the ‘Water Commission’ was originally established
in Jaffa, placing on the public agenda — for the first time — ideas about
establishing a Jewish hold on the sea and its shores. Initial attempts
were made to purchase ships and found Jewish shipping companies,
a number of Jewish fishing groups were launched, and efforts were
even made to create a professional nautical association. Nonetheless,
throughout that period the Yishuv and its leaders devoted all their
attention to agricultural settlement on land; they made no exceptional
efforts to hold the land’s shores and invest in the different nautical
professions. In fact, almost all of the efforts in the maritime realm at the
time failed or were short-lived; they did not lead to significant change
in Zionist control over the sea.

The second chapter focuses on the shifts that took place in the
attitudes of Yishuv institutions to the sea and its professions. It examines
these attitudes from the advent of the first Jewish private shipping