At the end of 1947, following U.N. approval of the partition plan for Eretz Israel which excluded Jerusalem from the designated territory of the Jewish state, Abraham Granott,
head of JNF, wrote: "Despite
everything, Jerusalem will remain the eternal capital of the Jewish
People. What has been sanctified by generations cannot be abolished,"
and he proposed an all-encompassing program to be carried out by JNF
in and around the city.
At the end of the War
of Independence, early in 1949, most of Jerusalem, apart from the Old City, was included in
the territory of the Jewish state, along with significant areas around
it that came under IDF control and Joined it to the Coastal Plain. Thus
came into being the Jerusalem Corridor, a quasi-triangle with its apex
in Jerusalem; its northern border - the old road to Jerusalem; its southern
border - the HaElah Valley; and its western border - Shaar HaGai and
the Beit Shemesh Road to the HaElah Valley and the Adullam Region.
In this extensive area of hundreds of thousands of
dunams there was not a single Jewish settlement. Comprised of foothills
rising towards Jerusalem, it was mountainous, rocky, remote from roadways
and bare of trees and woodlands. It had been worked by Arab villagers
who had eked out a living from winding, hillside, terrace agriculture
and small plantations in the narrow valleys and wadis. The area had
been abandoned in the war and had to be settled quickly in order to
connect the capital to the foothills and the Sharon Plain and make it
an integral part of the newly established state. The first step was
to pave a new road through the Corridor, the only road at the time that
led to Jerusalem.
Most of the Jewish agricultural settlements in the
county had been built in the plains and valleys and lived off irrigated
or dry farming, auxiliary farming and orchard growing on broad, flat
plains. The new area, the Jerusalem Corridor, presented a different
challenge. Moshavim and worker villages were immediately established,
populated entirely by new immigrants who arrived in the country during
the first decade of statehood. JNF ensured these moshavim an initial
income base by employing members in afforestation and land reclamation.
It also prepared auxiliary farms for them. In time, when they had land
and had learned to farm, the settlements became independent moshavim.
In this fashion, JNF reclaimed tens of thousands of dunams [one dunam
= approximately 1/4 acre] for agriculture and helped to establish and
sustain dozens of rural settlements. Its largest project at the time,
however, carried out with the help of the settlers, was the afforestation
of the barren hills and their transformation into wooded country.
The Jerusalem Corridor, Mateh Yehuda, the Hilly Region
- all denote the area from Adullam to the Jerusalem Highway and Jerusalem
itself. This area of hills and mountains, rocks and stones had little
vegetation. Over the years JNF's planning, together with the work of
the settlers, transformed it into the largest afforested region in the
country. It was as if green carpets had been pulled over the desolate
hills and mountains - over hundreds of thousands of dunams of rural
settlements and the town of Beit
Shemesh - from hill to vale, down among the different pine woods,
cypresses, eucalyptus, carobs, figs, olive trees, mastics and oaks planted
over 40 years and up among the native species of bush and shrub, laced
with streams and springs - a settled land of all shades and hues. The
forests, such as President's Forest that embraces the large tree nursery
at Eshtaol, stretch out from the Jerusalem foothills, climb up hills,
spread over peaks and slopes and are criss-crossed by dozens of kilometers
of sinuous roads, built by JNF. They harbor plantations in valleys and
on terraces, as well as fields and gardens.
A large land - Taoz and Tarom and Eshtaol and Ish'i
from the foothills to Tzora; and Noham, Mahassia, Zanoah and Zecharya
at the head of the road to the south; and mountain-top Azekah keeping
eagle watch, and Agur and the Isaiah Hills and Tzafririm and Aderet,
Roglit and Aviezer, that flank the HaElah Valley and look onto the Etzion
Bloc in the Hebron Mountains, which were once across the border
and inaccessible. And Netiv HaLamed Heh, named after the force of 35
that did not manage to reach the Bloc. And the HaElah Valley, where David fought Goliath, and
Mata and Mevo Betar and Bar Giora and Nes Harim atop the mountains and
in the ancient forests touching heaven. And across the deep wadi rising
toward Jerusalem - the Sorek Riverbed, across the century-old railroad
tracks to Beit Meir and Convoy Ridge, overlooking Shaar HaGai and the
charred cars that never made it to Jerusalem, and from there up the
hills to Shoresh and Shoeva and Givat Ye'arim and Kisalon and Ramat
Raziel and Tzova and Kiryat Anavim and Maaleh HaHamisha and Neveh Ilan,
nestling in the old forests from Mandate times, and from there to Tzova
and Even Sapir and Ora and Aminadav and Beit Zayit and Mevasseret Zion
and the Castel that remembers
the blood of the battles waged there and still hears the cries of the
fallen.
And most of these settlements, 35 in number, were established
by immigrants from Yemen and Kurdistan and North
Africa and Romania and Hungary, brought to unknown
hills to make their home. Many years have passed, and the Jerusalem
Corridor has become a large settled area, a shield and hinterland for
Jerusalem. Hard and alien soil has become home and field, forest and
plantation - a homeland to parents who came from afar 40 years ago and
to children born here and to their children forever more.