A Cross-cultural Diffusion of Colonization: From Posen to Palestine

This paper discusses the diffusion of a colonization model from Posen to Palestine at the beginning of the twentieth century. It shows that the colonization process in Palestine initiated by the Zionist Organization in the period preceding the first World War was consciously influenced by geographical concepts and patterns developed two decades earlier by the German Colonization Commission in Posen. Within a short time of its implementation in Palestine, major changes were introduced in the original colonization model, as developed in Posen, in terms of both colonization methods and instruments. This was a result of the influence of specific political, cultural, and social circumstances prevailing in the Ottoman Empire in general and in Palestine in particular. One of the modifications, which proved subsequently to be of lasting importance, was the acceptance by the colonizing agency of a grass-roots collective-cooperative form of agricultural settlement established by penniless, highly motivated, socialist settlers.