Plan for the Zikhron Ya‘akov Settlement and Its Buildings

Zikhron Ya‘akov was first established near the city of Haifa as a Jewish agricultural settlement in 1882 by members of a Jewish nationalist association from northeastern Romania. These immigrants, the first cohort of what would become the First Aliyah, initially settled in Palestinian villages as they prepared the land in what would become Zikhron Ya‘akov and Rosh Pinah. Struggling to realize their vision for a modern agricultural settlement on their own, these pioneers (who preceded the Ḥibat Tsiyon movement) turned to philanthropist Baron Edmond James de Rothschild (1845–1934) for financial and technical support. Frequently relying on European-trained professionals (Jewish and Christian), Rothschild’s representatives in Palestine hired Gottlieb Schumacher to draw up a Western-minded plan in 1883 for the colony, which was to be very different from the neighboring Palestinian villages. Specialists like Schumacher were instrumental in measuring, planning, and building new settlements, urban neighborhoods, industrial plants, and public buildings in the New Yishuv, creating planned European “islands” across Palestine in the first decade of the First Aliyah. Many of these First Aliyah colonies were heavily influenced by the Templar colonization project, in which Schumacher, who immigrated to Palestine in 1869 from Zanesville, Ohio with the German Templar Society, was actively involved. A German-trained architect, cartographer, and civil engineer, he served as the Ottoman-appointed engineer for the province of Acre and the United States consular agent in Haifa (1891–1904).