Treasure Trove: Putting the ‘Sea’ in Zionism (It’s All Hands on Deck)

The story of Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, is often framed in terms of land: purchasing it, building towns and farms, planting trees, and making the desert bloom. Less well known is that “conquering the sea” was also an important part of Zionism. David Ben Gurion [See https://thecjn.ca/arts-culture/treasure-trove-recalls-david-ben-gurions-1951-triumphant-visit-to-new-york-city/], who later became Israel’s first Prime Minister, saw seafaring as critical to the regeneration of the Jewish nation and the establishment of the Jewish state.  The sea offered economic opportunities for shipping and fishing and, because of the long coast line, access to the rest of the world including to facilitate immigration.

At the inauguration of the port in Tel Aviv in 1936, Ben Gurion said:

“The conquest of the soil by city people was the great, first adventure of our movement, of our endeavour in the country. A second adventure, great also, and perhaps harder than the first, still awaits us – the conquest of the sea […] We should remember: this country of ours combines land and water.”

In furtherance of this objective, Jewish shipping companies were founded and groups of fishermen were formed.

On June 10, 1937 on the deck of the Har Zion, a vessel in the Jewish shipping company Palestine Maritime Lloyd Ltd., the Palestine Maritime League was formed.  The mission of the  League was “to cultivate maritime consciousness, to create plans and to develop methods to increase interest in the sea and in maritime activities, to train the youth and to establish a national shipping company”.

The League published educational brochures and a magazine called HaYam (The Sea) and promoted the study of sailing and shipping. One of its methods was through sticker books such as this one which was issued in 1939.

52 stickers were issued in four categories: sea creatures, types of ships, the Tel Aviv Port and the Hebrew fisherman. As an incentive to collect these stickers, the League organized a quarterly draw among the collectors which awarded prizes such as a trip on the Har Zion, photographs of the sea and nautical clothing.

In 1945, the League together with the Jewish Agency and the Histadrut labour federation founded ZIM Palestine Navigation Company. The name ZIM comes from the biblical Hebrew word tsim found in Numbers 24:24 which means a fleet of ships.  During Israel’s War of Independence, ZIM was Israel’s sole maritime connection to the world supplying food, freight and military equipment.  Today ZIM is a public company with a market capitalization of over $4 billion and is in the process of being acquired.

For those of you who enjoy boating at this time of year, recognize that you are not only cooling off and having fun but you are participating in a Zionist activity, one that helped build the State of Israel and regenerate the Jewish nation. As Jewish life sometimes makes us yaw or roll, by keeping a steady hand on the tiller you are well suited to turn the corner and steer us to calmer waters. It is, after all, all hands on deck.

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Treasure Trove is a program of The Herzl Project. Another program is The #Herzl100. 100 Herzl artifacts will be posted over 100 days on Instagram, FaceBook and TikTok. Search #Herzl100 on any of these platforms to see the first 66 artifacts, with the Top 34 still to go! A new one drops every day.

For more treasures from the Herzl and Zionism Collection of David Matlow, which has appeared weekly in the Treasure Trove column in the Canadian Jewish News (www.thecjn.ca) since February 2021, see https://herzlcollection.com/treasure-trove