This is a photograph of a man delivering milk in Nahalal in 1936. The photograph, taken by photographer Rudi Weissenstein, shows a man on a dirt road leading a horse that is pulling a sled on which there is a large container of milk. The man is also carrying a metal milk container. Other people are standing at the side of the road as the horse goes past. A large water tank dominates the landscape. In the background there is a low, simple building. This photograph depicts the primitive agricultural methods that characterised the early twentieth century in Israel. It is especially interesting to compare this to the modern agriculture of the twenty-first century.
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Nahalal - Nahalal, founded in 1921, was the first moshav in Israel. A moshav is a cooperative agricultural community. Nahalal was founded in the western Jezreel Valley by pioneers of the Second Aliyah, some of whom had previously been members of Kibbutz Degania. The life of the 80 founding families was hard, as they drained the swamps in order to prevent malaria and prepare the land for farming in the hot and dry climate. Nahalal was a planned community designed by Richard Kauffmann and became the model for many more moshavim. The layout was based on concentric circles with public buildings in the centre, houses in a circle around them, followed by circles of farm buildings and finally fields. In 1929, WIZO established a Girl’s Agricultural Training Farm on Nahalal. Nahalal currently has a population of 1,300 people. Nahalal’s notable members included the Dayan family (Moshe, Ruth, and Yael) and the writer Meir Shalev. Ilan Ramon, Israel’s first astronaut, is buried in Nahalal’s cemetery, although he never lived there.
Rudi (Rudolph) Weissenstein - Rudi (Rudolph) Weissenstein (1910–1992) was born in Czechoslovakia, where he studied photography with his father, before continuing to school in Vienna. Weissenstein moved to Israel in 1935 after experiencing anti-Semitism. In Israel, he began working as an independent photographer. He took photographs all over Israel, pictures of the development of pre-state Israel which were spread around the world. In 1940, Weissenstein opened Pri-Or Photo House, where he built an archive of his work along with other documentation about the subjects. After his death in 1992, his widow, Miriam, and, later, his grandson continued to run the Photo House.
