The Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive Collection

Harvest from the Water

14 Minutes, 1952
Genre:
Documentary

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Directed by: Michael Elkins
Production:Jacob Marx
Production Company:Keren Hayesod
Photographer: Yaakov Jonilowicz
Language: English
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Subtitles: English, Hebrew

This short documentary film, produced by the United Israel Appeal, reviews the developing fishing industry during Israel’s implementation of its austerity policy. At this point in history, as Israel sought to minimize importing goods from abroad to save on foreign currency, the Israeli government, along with the UIA, invested 18 million dollars in the fishing industry to ensure a homegrown food source, which would allow for Israel’s survival without depending on external food sources. The film first focuses on the trawlers used for deep-sea fishing, which would sail out of the Port of Haifa and the settlement of Michmoret. In the time elapsed between the establishment of the Michmoret fishing village in 1945 and the film’s release in 1952, Michmoret had also begun cultivating agricultural farmland, but fish remained its primary harvest. To that end, a school had been opened in Michmoret to train employees for the fishing industry, where students honed their skills and formed fishing cooperatives which would eventually feed the Israeli fishing industry. Meanwhile, in the Galilee and in Bet She’an, artificial pools for fish farming were also established with the aid of the UIA; by 1952, the pools were providing 3,000 tons of fish a year and numerous workplaces for immigrants. Thanks to these efforts, and following many years of dispersion and learning by trial and error, the fishing industry became vital to the Jewish people’s independent survival in Israel.

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