Excerpt from a Diary
       of a Bilu'ee - 1884
 
 

I have not written for ten days; I have been physically incapable of it. My hands are blistered and congested with blood, and I cannot straighten my fingers. While I was in Russia I dreamed of working eight hours a day and devoting the rest of my time to things of the mind. But how can one's brain absorb anything when one's back is near to breaking and one is overcome by dreadful fatigue - when all one wants to do on returning from work is to eat supper and fling oneself down and sleep.

On my first day of work I got up at five, the hour of sunrise, as work began at six. After arranging our bedding we set out for Mikveh Yisrael.

We took our hoes, filled the Jarra (large pitcher used by the Arabs) with water, rolled up our sleeves and got down to work under the supervision of the foreman. We had to dig up the ground to a depth of about 30 centimeters and remove all weeds, together with their roots.

Lighter tasks, such as laying out vegetable beds, planting, picking fruit, or watering are not given to us. We are made to hoe all the time. The foreman keeps us at it relentlessly; he does not let us relax for a moment. He was instructed to treat us like that by Hirsch, who wants to drive the "madness" out of us and make us leave the place. Every day he stands behind the trees, watching and then suddenly appears at our side. He simply cannot believe that Jews, and intelligent men at that, can in all seriousness do manual labor.
 

The "Biluim" took their name from the Hebrew initials of the phrase "Beit Ya'acov Lechu Venelecha" (House of Jacob Come Let Us Go.) They were a small group of idealists from Russia, Rumania and Poland who, as a result of the pogroms and anti Jewish policy of the Russian government, decided to settle in Palestine and live of the land.

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