Kinneret colony celebrates 100th anniversary - part 4
Zionist-settlement enterprise launched near Jordan River's point of departure from Sea of Galilee. Fourth part of series documents lives of Chizik, Treidel and Balinkov families
Three weeks ago we started publishing a four-piece series dedicated to the Kinneret colony, which was established exactly 100 years ago.
In this series we bring you the stories of the first families that settled at the place, and who have lived there till this day. The photos are on display at the colony's museum and its first houses.
We would like to thank Mulik (Shmuel) Yizraeli, whose family was one of the founders and who treasures the days of the colony in his memories.
The Chizik family
The Chizik family, who made aliyah to Israel from Ukraine in 1907, entered the seventh of the eight farmer houses at Kinneret. Although the family spent only a short period at the colony, its history is strongly intertwined with that of the Land of Israel.
Ephraim Chizik was drafted in World War I to assist in the Turks' war efforts, and when the war ended he joined the Haganah organization. During the Jaffa riots in 1921 he took part in the defense of Tel Aviv against the Arab rioters that attacked it.
Ephraim's sister Sara was killed alongside Yossef Trumpeldor in the battle of Tel Chai in 1920. During the 1929 riots Ephraim was sent by the Haganah to help the people of Kibbutz Hulda to defend the place, and was killed there.
Baruch Chizik graduated fro university with a degree in agriculture, lived with his sister Chaya at the colony. Nahum Wilbusch (Wilbuschwitz, who founded Shemen), who had an Ottoman nationality, was appointed by Camel Pasha during World War One to be in charge of the water works in the Golan.
Wilbush knew Baruch Chizik and invited him to design and erect gardens in Damascus. At the same time Chaya Chizik married Haim-Dov Balinkov, who came to Israel in 1906 and became a guard at the Galilee colonies.
In 1921, the rest of the Balinkov family arrived in Israel. The house in Kinneret was too small for the clan, and so they left Kinneret. The only family member to stay in the colony was Haim-Dov's nephew Binyamin.
2. Chaya (Chizik) Balinkov (right) and her husband Dov-Haim Balinkov (left), who received and cultivated Baruch Chizik's farm in Kinneret
3. Back and left: Haim-Dov, his wife Chaya and their son Amiram. Front: The sons David and Yehonatan. Picture taken in Herzliya, 1928. Amiram was the first casualty of the war against the British when he was killed in the battle on the British Police headquarters in Tel Aviv in 1946
4. Picture from the 1940s. a photographer from Shanghai who was living with the Treidel family at the Colony took the pictures and colored them. In the photo: Amiram and Nurit Haber
The Treidel family
The eighth and last house at the colony was purchased by Alfred Treidel. He was still abroad at the time of the buy. And so his brother, Jupp, handled the deal. The large house at the northern end of the colony was also built by Jupp Trieidel with Alfred's money. This house served partly as a hotel. Binyamin Balinkov was only 17 when he was hired to be work supervisor at the Treidel household.
The Treidel family has experienced much hardship. In 1920, Sherman, the foreman of the Treidel farm, was killed in a work accident. In 1921, Alfred Treidel died of an illness and his brother Jupp began managing his farm as well alongside his work at an engineering office in Haifa.
Ephraim Krause, Jupp's partner in the engineering office, died in 1924. The Kinneret farm fell into heavy debts, and in 1927 Jupp Treidel committed suicide.
The wives and children of the Treidel brothers left the colony and went abroad. The eighth farm was returned to the JCA in order to pay the debts, and in 1930 Binyamin Balinkov was accepted as a farmer in the eighth house (Arik, Binyamin's son, set up a display of those first days in the farm's barn).
The family members appearing in these articles and their friends are invited to add information through the talkback feature.
- For all trips to the past – click here
