Hatzerim

We were joined there by a group of young immigrant refugees who had come to Palestine by way of Iran and were known as "The Children of Teheran". There we all received agricultural as well as military training in order to serve together in the prestigious Palmach division of the Haganah ground forces. As was the custom in those pre-state days we we... re due to work in one of the small settlements (Moshavot) and await our turn to receive land on which to settle. However these plans were changed with the publication of the British White Paper which restricted Jewish purchase and settlement of land. As we were making final arrangements to leave the Jordan Valley we were told that we would be one of eleven groups that were targeted to settle immediately at one of the strategic points in the Negev during the hours of darkness in October 1946. Our original group (gar'in) was comprised of five young woman and 25 young men. The enthusiasm was high and didn't even drop when we discovered at daybreak that our new home was simply a barren hill in an expansive desert area with only a single acacia tree to be seen against the horizon. During the first year we worked at various jobs outside of the settlement, the most important being the laying of a six inch water pipe from the area of Gvar'am/Nir'am, two kibbutzim about 60 kms north of Hatzerim. A year after our arrival we received our first water supply and immediately began preparing the land. The water in the pipe brought us joy but our future in agriculture was still uncertain as all we had were 600 dunams (150 acres) of cultivatable land. Our efforts to use the water for agriculture were crushed with the passing of the UN Resolution on 29 th November 1947 calling for the establishment of a Jewish state in part of Palestine. This caused a wave of Arab rioting and terror including the cutting off of the pipeline carrying water to the Negev settlements. We remained without piped water until the end of the War of Independence. However we realized that our settlement served ...Read More