Yehoshua Hankin
Yehoshua Hankin was a Zionist activist who was responsible for most of the major land purchases of the [World Zionism|Zionist Organization|Zionist Organization] in Ottoman Palestine and Mandatory Palestine – in particular for the Sursock Purchase.
Biography
Yehoshua Hankin was born in Kremenchuk, Russian Empire, and moved to Rishon LeZion with his parents in 1882. In 1887, his family moved to Gedera. In 1888, Hankin married Olga Belkind in Gedera. She was a woman twelve years his senior, who would become his partner in all his endeavors. Givat Olga, a neighborhood of Hadera, is named after her. Their marriage remained childless. Hankin died in Tel Aviv and was buried in the Galilee next to his wife Olga, at the house he had built for them at Ein Harod on Mount Gilboa.Land purchases
While living in Gedera, Hankin became friendly with local Arabs, helping him negotiate the purchase of land. Hankin's first purchase was the land of Rehovot, acquired in 1890. A year later, using funds provided by the Hovevei Zion associations in Vilnius and Kaunasa, he bought the land that later became the settlement and city of Hadera. According to Roy Marom, this "purchase was the largest land acquisition operation for Jewish settlement to date." Hankin soon settled in one of Hadera’s satellite estates. He then purchased territories for the Jewish Colonial Association in the Galilee.In 1908, when the Zionist organization sent Arthur Ruppin and set up the Palestine Land Development Company, Hankin joined. In 1909 or 1910, Hankin completed his first major purchase in the Jezreel Valley. He bought some 10,000 dunams of land in Al-Fuleh, which became the home of Merhavia. This purchase also marked the start of bitter disputes between Arabs and Jews over the rights of tenant farmers who had been evicted, and regarding the employment of Jewish or Arab watchmen for the land.
In his article, Buying the Emek, Arthur Ruppin described the vicissitudes of this purchase:
Because of the reluctance of Zionist organizations to pay for land, Hankin frequently agreed to purchase lands and then convinced the Jewish agency or others to finance the "done deal." As Ruppin notes:
During World War I, Hankin was exiled by the Turks to Anatolia. Returning to Palestine, he soon resumed his work where he had left off. In 1920, he concluded a deal with the Sursock family of Beirut for purchase of 60,000 dunams of land in the Jezreel Valley. He negotiated for this land when he had in fact not a penny to finance the purchase. The chairman of the Jewish National Fund, Nehemiah De Lieme, refused to pay for the land, arguing that it was beyond the budget of the Fund, but he was overruled by the Zionist organization and in particular Chaim Weizmann. This tract became home to numerous new kibbutzim and other settlements, including Nahalal, Ginegar, Kfar Yehezkel, Geva, Ein Harod, Tel Yosef and Beit Alfa.
A number of villages in the Jezreel Valley were inhabited by tenants of land who were displaced following the sale. The JNF demanded the existing population be relocated and as a result, the Palestinian Arab tenant farmers were evicted, with some receiving compensation the buyers were not required to pay under the new British Mandate law. Although they were not legally owed any compensation, the evicted tenants, were compensated with $17 per person.
Subsequently, Hankin was involved in large scale purchases of land in and around Acco. In 1927, Hankin proposed an ambitious 20 year land purchase plan to the Jewish Agency for Israel, a plan that was never carried out in full. In 1932, he became head of the Palestine Land Development Corporation.
Hankin understood the necessity to plan for Arab as well as Jewish settlement, and apparently intended to do so. In July 1930, he wrote: