A rare group photo of the prominent leaders of the first aliyah that took place as part of a meeting between the Gedera Bil'im and the Rishon Lezion Bil'im at the Baron Garden in Rishon Lezion - The prominent leaders of the first Aliyah. Photographer: Yaakov Ben Dov (signed on the back with his hand stamp). Early of the 20th century.
photographed: Dr. Haim Hisin, Zvi Ben-Yacov Horvitz, Menashe Meyrovitz, Dov Ariel Leibovitch, Yoel Drobin, Benjamin Fox, Samson Belkind. Yaakov Shlomo Hazanov, Fanny Feinberg, Yehuda Tzellichin, Hasia Tzellichin, Eliyahu Sverdlov.
The people of the first aliyah were the Biloy"im. The goal of the members of the association "Bil"u" ("Beit Ya'akov Lechu V'Nelcha"), founded in Kharkov in 1882 by a group of Jewish students, was to establish a Jewish society in Eretz Israel with a Hebrew culture and language, based on justice and Social equality. The members of the "Bil"u" were the flag bearers of Zionism in their dedication, their tenacity, their enthusiasm and their social vision. In June 1882, Belkind led a group of 14 Bil'im who immigrated to Eretz Israel, 12 of them in the photograph before us!, an event that marked the beginning of the first immigration. At first they worked in agriculture at the Mikve Israel school, and lived in a house they rented in the center of Jaffa Gardens. Later they moved to Rishon Lezion and from there to Gedera the first colony they built.
Size: 29x23 cm. Good condition.
