The Ballad of Yoel Moshe Salomon

"The Ballad of Yoel Moshe Salomon" is a 1970 Israeli popular song by Arik Einstein, with lyrics by Yoram Taharlev and music by Shalom Hanoch. In whimsical fashion, the lyrics tell of a trip by the founders of the Petah Tikva moshava (agricultural colony) to inspect the land around the village of Umm Labes in the Yarkon Valley on which the colony was subsequently established. The song helped fuel a controversy amongst descendants of the founders of Petah Tikva regarding the relative roles of their ancestors in establishing the colony. It is an example of how popular song is used in Israel in constructing historical myths. Historical background Jewish philanthropists had begun to acquire land in Palestine for agricultural purposes as early as the 1850s. Sir Moses Montefiore purchased ten hectares of orange groves outside Jaffa in 1855, to be worked by Jews from that city. In 1870, the Alliance Israelite Universelle founded the Mikveh Israel agricultural school some five kilometres south of Jaffa on 260 hectares of land leased from the Turkish government. Also in the 1850s, a Baghdadi Jew named Shaul Yehuda purchased a farm near Colonia, outside Jerusalem. It later became the community of Motza. The religiously observant Jews from the Old Yishuv in Jerusalem, who founded Petah Tikva, had initially been less successful in obtaining agricultural land. The Arab intermediary through whom they were to have been purchased 4000 dunams near Hebron in 1875 decided to buy the land for himself. Their attempt to acquire land at Khirbat Deiran near Ramla also failed, though that property was eventually purchased in 1890 on behalf of a group of Polish Jews. There they established the colony of Rehovot. The eventual founders of Petah Tikva had also tried to purchase land near Jericho in 1876 for a colony they intended to name Petah Tikva ‘Opening of Hope’. The name Petah Tikva is a biblical reference associated with the Achor Valley near Jericho. The name was later transferred to the colony established near Jaffa. In 1878 the founders of Petah Tikva learned of the availability of land northeast of Jaffa near the village of Umlabes. The land was owned by two Christian businessmen from Jaffa, Antoine Bishara Tayan and Selim Qassar, and was worked by some thirty tenant farmers. Tayan's property was the larger, some 8,500 dunams, but much of it was in the malarial swamp of the Yarkon Valley.