Aliyah 100: Mazkeret Batya & Winery

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Introduction

Readership is going down lately as I become more normalized and less, “what on earth is going on here” to my new surroundings. Now it just feels normal to find something completely different week after week. While you might be expecting something special, that’d was in the I MADE IT blog entry number 62. I might be winding down the aliyah blog though continue with kosher travel articles. We’ll see – I said that 75 entries ago, too.

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Aliyah Rishon (1880s)

What is now called “aliyah rishon” was the first “modern” aliyah movement when Rabbi Mohilever said, “stop sending nerds to Israel – send farmers and maybe we can do better than a 40% death rate”. Convincing Baron Rothschild to fund a religious farming settlement … people died. Then they community refused to farm during the shmitta year and Rothchild was … rather miffed and took ownership of their land.

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What’s There to See

First, there’s a small three-room or so museum with what can best be described as ‘memorabilia’ and commemorative plaques and pictures with explanations all in Hebrew. Google translate of photos was indispensable. This isn’t your America-friendly tourist site. This is meant for Israelis and like every other place of note I’ve visited mid-week, there’s an obligatory school group visiting. It’s cute.

For those of you who question the existence of G_d, I bring proof today in that I found every site I was looking for with no map, no guide, and no online information of note … then I found an entrance to a winery while exploring dirt roads through a huge farm and then found out that was the correct way. Got to love Israel.

The one-page brochure said something about a movie and so I asked … the cash-registerist (kupa-it) led me to the next building which was the town pharmacy and started a DVD. One thing I can say about movies at these places … they’re good. Very informative and engaging. Katzin movie about Gamla comes to mind.

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A Town With History

Next, I moseyed about outside … let’s walk around the block, I said to myself in second person. What’s this town like? Well, they care about their history. The houses in this part of the city date back to the late 1800s and early 1900s and like decidedly not Israeli. It’s a residential area with a lot of European flavor – no white brick to be found though red bricks, wood, and stucco is available. The houses each have the name of the family who lived there, when the house was built, and when it was renovated. Simply unique to anything I’ve seen in the world before.

The street signs are named after people, and each sign tells you something about the person.

The movie complained that under the Ottoman Empire (where old cheerios, lint, and pens gather until you tell the cleaning lady she has to move the furniture next time she cleans), the amount of land Jews could build on was so restricted that houses had to be built right next to each other. Haha … if only they knew how bad it would be once Jews took over zoning regulations, they wouldn’t have been complaining.

Walking around, I ‘stumbled upon’ (with G_d as my navigator, apparently) the second well they dug and then the first well they dug which was lost until 1994. At that time they went to recreate a well somewhere in the vicinity as a memorial and … hey, they found the actual first well. It’s like this place is all about, “no map, no problem – G_d will find it for you.”

Wells turn out to be very important in Israel – this is the third ancient well I’ve seen and the first with running water … with modern hose emptying into the well for a reason I cannot comprehend.

Walking around a little more, past some schools filled with probably descendants of the founders, who by in large are not so religious today, there are quite a few kids here in a walkable residential town. A Chabad pre-school and elementary school, much, much smaller than the secular schools, are also in the area though the public school has information outside about the Mohilever rabbi / founder and mezuzahs are on every door. “Haredim don’t have a monopoly in religion” I’ve been told. “Secular” Jews can also be quite religious or traditional.

Following this, on a main square across from the city government buildings is the old synagogue, which is seemingly still in use, with a new synagogue next to it. The synagogue looks Hungarian, not Israeli. It was built before modern Israel had it’s Bauhaus-inspired / British mandated-white stone style. Looks like many very old synagogues in New Jersey …. long, rectangular, balcony wraps around the second floor.

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Surrounding Fields

The founders of the Ekron settlement – renamed to Mezkeret Batya when Baron Rothschild’s mother, Batya, died – insisted on moving to a place with good soil. 40% death rate didn’t appeal to them. (They gave Rothschild quite the problems, apparently.) Now, it’s a nice residential community though driving back home, it’s miles of fields to the left and right. Drivers are so polite here, one would think they’re in America. Suddenly it’s South California orange groves, a Mediterranean vineyard, and … hey … is that Barkan Winery? I like that brand. Whoops … just passed it.

At the next turn off I plan to turn around and hey, it’s the “Hulda forest”. Let’s check that out … hmm… road through crops all around … and … apparently had I turned around on the road there’d be no way to enter into the wine store! I was supposed to quasy-aimlessly drive some weird way through an unmarked dirt road to a “forest” that doesn’t seem to exist and arrive at the winery. I’m telling you – it can’t all be coincidence that I found everything today. Proof.

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Barkan Winery

Apparently, they have a restaurant, tours, and a crazy-high number of cars parked there for the very few people I saw. So … I walked in like I belonged there, explored around, and went past some doors that had places where it looked like tickets would be purchased for a tour. Nothing is quite like the smell of a room full of wine in oak caskets. Selling Jerusalem air and J’sus water is all good … I’d buy the “oak casket wine storage room” smell.

After the self-tour, enjoying a really calm and relaxing walk around wine vats with fields surrounding, I found the wine store. You’d think that would have been immediately noticeable upon entry. Nah. Bought some wine, headed home … and … so that’s what’s on the other side of the highway from Modiin. It’s like another country over there and defies the stereotypes of what Israel looks like. This country isn’t a desert, it isn’t a city, it isn’t old, it isn’t new … it’s the largest mix of everything you could find in the world in the smallest space.

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