Hartuv

The Anglican mission in Palestine has been operating since the 1840s, when the Ottoman authorities allowed foreign missions in this region to operate. The mission built a hospital in the Old City of Jerusalem and established several educational institutions in different cities of Palestine. Relations between the Anglican missionaries and the old (religious) Jewish Yishuv in Palestine did not develop, the Yisuv rabbis, fearing the increasing influence of Christian ideas among Palestinian Jews, gave the missionaries the nickname “Mission of Instigators” ( Heb. משלחת המסיתים ) ^[2] .

Among the participants of the First Aliyah , who began to arrive in Palestine since 1882, the attitude towards the missionaries was more tolerant. The newly arrived Jews often needed work and housing, and the missionaries were ready to organize both, in the hope of turning someone who received help into their faith. In 1883, 6,000 dunums of land belonging to the Arab village of Artuf, south of Jerusalem, were acquired at the expense of the mission, far from the places of residence of members of the old Yishuv. A large house was built in this area, where 46 families of newly arrived Jews were settled. The settlers could engage in agricultural or any other activity; the mission did not prevent them from sending Jewish religious rites, only requiring attendance at the liturgy on Sundays. The new settlement was named Hartuv, and in the Jewish newspapers of that time he was given the nickname “Settlement Village” ^[2] .

Difficult living conditions and constant pressure from the leadership of the old Yishuv (the rabbis threatened to refuse to circumcise the boys born in Hartuwa and bury the dead there in the Jewish cemetery ^[3] ) led to the settlers eventually leaving Khartuv. Of the families that had initially arrived there, only three were able to convert to Christianity, and in 1893 the settlement organizers admitted their defeat and put the lands of Khartuv for sale ^[2] .

In 1895, most of the land in Khartuv (about 5,000 dunums) was acquired by a group of supporters of the Hovevei Zion movement in Bulgaria, which called itself the Brotherhood of the Settlement of the Land of Israel . The choice of location was determined by the recommendations of the settlement administrator Mikve-Israel , who informed the Bulgarian activists that these lands are suitable for agriculture and that there is water in the acquired territory. In December 1895, in the days of Hanukkah , 12 settler families arrived in Hartów, according to the number of tribes of Israel ^[4] .

The first group of arrivals settled in a stone house left over from the Anglican colony, and began preparations to receive the rest of the Brotherhood. It soon became clear that the matter was not limited to paying the cost of land to the former owners, and they had to give bribes to the local authorities, who had issued a warrant to evict the new inhabitants of Hartuwa. Then it turned out that the agricultural value of the purchased land was greatly exaggerated: only a small part of it was suitable for sowing, and the amount of available water was subject to strong seasonal differences — during dry periods, it was only enough to drink. As a result, residents had to find other means of earning, among which were the transportation of goods with camel caravans, flour milling, production of oil and dried flowers, then exported outside the country (this product came to America as "plants of the Holy Land " ^[3] ). Hartuv was surrounded on all sides by the Arab lands, not having a direct connection with large Jewish centers ^[4] . In any case, relations with the old Yishuv among the new inhabitants of Hartuwa, as well as with the former ones, were tense, and for a long time all marriages took place within a small commune ^[2] .

In 1909, a third of the Hartuwa land was sold to the Jewish philanthropist Itzhak Leib Goldberg, who planned to create an exemplary farm on them. With the money received, the residents of Khartuv began reclaiming the remaining land. Instead of fields, they began to break orchards and plantations of fruit trees, almonds and olives . Small-scale industrial production and dairy farming were also developing — for the first time in Palestine, a dairy farm was organized at Hartów on a professional level ^[4] . The people of Hartuwa also worked on the Goldberg farm; Later, the Shimshon quarry began work, and new permanent houses were built in Hartuwa ^[2] .

After the Arab unrest of 1929 began, Khartuv withstood the night siege by Arab troops, but then its inhabitants and the inhabitants of the farm founded by Goldberg were evacuated to Jaffa . The settlement was looted and burned. After the riots ended, the farm was not restored, its lands were transferred to the Jewish National Fund , which then leased them to the returning residents of Hartuwa. Restoration work began in Hartuve itself. A well was rebuilt and for the first time water was supplied to individual houses. In 1946, a school for children with developmental problems began to function on the territory of Hartuva, supervised by the mayor of Tel Aviv ^[4] .

With the beginning of the civil war in Palestine, the situation in Hartuwa, located deep in the territory with the Arab population, turned out to be extremely difficult. The settlement was in the blockade, which only occasionally managed to break through the armed Jewish convoys. Finally, the Jewish leadership decided to evacuate Hartów; its inhabitants were taken out on May 16, 1948. Jews returned to Hartuv only in October 1948, when the territory of the settlement was liberated by the Palmach fighters. After the end of the Israeli War of Independence, several of the families who had previously lived in Hartuwa tried to restore the settlement once again, but this proved impossible in difficult financial conditions and in the absence of state support ^[4] .

In 1950, the eponymous Maabara Beit Shemesh was organized on the lands of Khartuv for new repatriates from Iran, Iraq, Romania and the Maghreb countries. In 1953, the Maabara was renamed Beit Shemesh ; in 1991, this locality received city status ^[5] . On the lands that previously belonged to Khartuv, moshav Naham and the Beit Shemesh industrial zone are now located ^[3] . The memory of the historic settlement is preserved in the form of several buildings - including the first large house built for the Anglican colony, the oil-splitting mill and the lime kiln - as well as the old cemetery. In a large house, the Hartuv Museum was created by the joint efforts of the Mate Yehuda Regional Council , the Israeli Society for the Conservation of Nature , the Jewish National Foundation and the public organization Hartuw ^[4] .