In 1882 the first agricultural colony of the First Aliyah was founded: Rishon LeZion. The first ten settlers, who were joined by tens more in the coming months, came with a dream: the colony would earn its bread from the land, in the spirit of the vision of the Bilu movement, which believed that the Jewish people would revive itself through a return to agriculture and a socialistic and communal way of life. The crop that was chosen as the axis for this life, was wheat. The settlers planned to distribute the proceeds among themselves equally, but reality delivered a rude surprise. The vast majority of the settlers lacked basic agricultural training, the well they dug was dry, and worst of all, the local land proved unfit for growing wheat, and the crop failed. At the end of its first year, Rishon LeZion was on the brink of falling apart.
Salvation came from Paris. Joseph Feinberg, who was one of the first ten settlers,
volunteered to go to Paris and
speak to Edmund de Rothschild. The meeting, unlike the fields of the colony, bore fruit. Rothschild was impressed by the young, educated settler, and agreed to help. He donated 25,000 French francs, but the money was delivered on condition that the settlers agree to receive agricultural training from experts, and heed to their professional advice. The settlers agreed.
The Bordeaux of the Middle East
The Baron's emissaries arrived in 1883. They helped dig a proper well, and prepare the fields for winter. During their stay in the colony, they noticed that right next to the dying fields of wheat, another plant thrived and blossomed – vines
.
The first vines were planted in Rishon LeTzion on a whim: settlers who fell in love with the strong, green vines they saw on the sides of the roads leading to the settlement, planted them in their yards. The Baron's emissaries realized that this simple-looking plant would be the savior of the settlement. They revamped Rishon LeTzion's agriculture and decided it would be based on vines for producing wine. There was a need to bring proper vines for wine from Europe. The decision was taken while Europe's vineyards were plagued by a deadly disease, so the first vines of Rishon Letzion were brought from India.
In 1887, the great winery of Rishon LeTzion was established, at the price of six million francs – an astronomic sum at the time, and unprecedented in comparison the other projects of the time in the region. The winery was completed in 1889. Rishon LeZion, together with Zichron Yaakov, was on its way to becoming the wine capital of the Middle East.
In the upcoming years, the winery was the biggest place of employment in the country, and as such, was prominent in the development of the local workers movement in the Yishuv. In 1901, for example, the first workers' strike took place among its workers, and the first workers' unions were organized in its context. Many of the settlers of the first waves of aliyah received their agricultural training as workers in the winery. One such settler was David Ben Gurion, a young emigrant from Russia. Local legend has it that the young Ben Gurion, always looking for a challenge, bet wit his friends that he could stamp on more grapes than all of them. In order to win the bet, he stayed up, stamping on the grapes for three days and nights in a row.