August 8, 1957 Thursday
“Yesterday we went on a tour…The first place visited was Zichron Yaakov…
Zichron Yaakov is a town located in the Carmel mountains near Haifa. It was named after Baron Rothschild’s father Yaakov (“Zichron Yaakov” literally means in memory of Yaakov), who donated large sums of money to establish the community in the 1880’s. He also built the winery in Zichron, which the Baron’s son James later donated in 1957.
“…the winery where most Israel wine is produced for export.”
While my father had little interest in wine, he was very interested in the viability and potential for export of Israeli products. Throughout his life, he encouraged strengthening the Israeli economy through the production and consumption of Israeli goods and services.
“It tasted great & is sold here for about 50 cents a quart bottle. Some contrast to the price of it in the U.S.”
How was it so inexpensive? The reason is that in the 1950’s, Israel produced mostly sweet red wines of an exceptionally low quality used predominately for religious ritual. Jews, of course, drink the sweet red wine for the Sabbath kiddush. To my father, of course, “it tasted great”, just like the food he was served on his El Al flight.
Also contributing to the cheap price may be the fact that the winery was donated by Rothschild in 1957, the very same year my father was there. This obviously reduced the overhead in manufacturing the wine, enabling the owners to sell it much cheaper.
Druze Loyalty to Israel
“From there we went to a Druze Village. It was amazing what a fierce loyalty the people have to Israel. I then walked through town & had many talks with the people most of whom and all the younger ones spoke Hebrew. I was amazed however when in house after house a picture of Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan was in the wall along with their sons in Israel’s Armed Forces. The children really get some education learning Hebrew, Arabic and English.”
My father always had a lot of respect for the Druze community. Decades after my father wrote this letter, he developed a strong relationship with Ayoob Kara, a Druze Knesset member of the Likud party. Like my dad, Ayoob Kara vehemently opposed Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and the northern Shomron, and even helped form a group in the IDF called “Druze don’t expel Jews”. (Since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, thousands of rockets have been launched into Israeli cities.)
Considering the patriotism of the Druze towards the State and their service in the army, my father never understood why the Druze did not receive more benefits than Arab Israeli citizens, some of whom are sworn enemies of the Jewish State.
Following the murder of Col. Dror Weinberg by Arab terrorists in Hebron 2002, two Druze border police assisted in capturing the terrorist. They were later accused of abusing the terrorists. My father helped pay the soldiers’ legal expenses, just as he would have done for a Jewish soldier in the same situation. I have kept in touch with Nazal Tzayif the brother of Zidan who was killed in the Har Nof Massacre in 2014 as he was coming to the aid of the Jewish worshippers. Nazal served as a security guard in the town where I live and I have helped support his family.
