Thanks to a photo album that came from Canada - will Nesher win another year?
A photo album describing the establishment of the Nesher cement factory and arriving at the university library tells about life in the area in the 20s.
Thanks to one photo that depicts the workers' barracks as early as 1923,
It is possible that the establishment date of Nesher will be brought forward by a year
A baptism in Kishon, the beginning of construction at Nesher's cement factory and also - a photo that suggests that a whole year was added to the city of Nesher, all these and other photos from life in the Haifa and Nesher area in the 20s and 30s of the last century can be found in a rare photo album that arrived at the Yunus and Soraya Nazarene Library at Haifa University from far away Vancouver.
A few months ago, a photo album arrived at the university library from Vancouver, Canada, in which, along with family photos, also historical photos documenting the establishment of the cement factory in Nesher in the early 20s of the 20th century. In addition to the establishment of the factory itself, the photos tell about the workers who established it and the life in those years in the area. The album gives an almost initial look at one of the biggest projects in Israel of the 20s and sheds additional light on life at that time and carries with it a special number. When they went through the photos in the album in the university library, they noticed that on one photo, which shows the barracks of the first workers in Nasher, the year "1923" is written in handwriting. Nesher did indeed begin to be established spontaneously, when the workers of the factory began to build themselves shacks next to the factory - but it is accepted to date the beginning of this settlement in 1924, as it also appears on the official website of the municipality. From the picture it becomes clear that apparently - Nesher was already established a year before - so thanks to the album it is possible that a whole year was added to Nesher...
The album was bequeathed to the university by Naomi Crusoe, who currently lives in Vancouver, Canada. Naomi inherited the album from her father, Bela Schnitlander, who was one of the founders of Nesher's cement factory. According to her, her father was interested in photography and together with his brother-in-law, Hermann Arno-Miller, who studied professional photography in the country of their origin in Budapest, they took pictures of the establishment of the Bensher factory, the landscapes of the Land of Israel, and many other pictures of their existence in the country. The album, named "Naomi Crusoe Collection - Nesher Album" tells the fascinating story of the establishment of the city around the factory in Nesher. The workers' barracks, the three streets with the well-kept houses of the factory engineers, public and educational buildings such as the school, the clinic, the canteen, the consumer - all these were the fruit of Bella's design. In addition, in a photo album of Jewish and Arab settlements in the Land of Israel in the 1920s; as well as documentation of renovations and construction in the complex of the Franciscan Basilica in Nazareth (now the Basilica of the Annunciation) between 1927 and 1931. In 1957, after the death of his wife, Bela left Israel with his daughter Naomi and continued a professional career in Canada.
Béla Schnittlander was among more than 50 Hungarian-speaking engineers and architects who immigrated to Israel between 1930-1920. Before immigrating to Israel, Bla studied civil engineering in Budapest, with the outbreak of the First World War he was drafted into the army and was wounded in it, after returning to his homeland in Hungary, he experienced difficulty in finishing his studies due to his being Jewish. This experience made Bela want to leave his country and he chose distant India, where he heard that a job in his profession could be found. In 1922, the 24-year-old Bela together with his 23-year-old wife Erzabet Elisheva Miller sailed to the Far East. The ship on which the couple sailed stopped at the port of Jaffa and they disembarked for a short visit. Bella wanted to meet friends from the university who had come to Eretz Israel several years before. These friends told him that he could also find work in Israel and convinced the young couple not to continue to India. At first Bella worked in the irrigation program in Zichron Ya'akov financed by Baron de Rothschild and with the start of construction of the cement factory in 1924, he served as the manager of the construction department at the Nesher factory. He was responsible for the construction of buildings in the factory and in the Nesher neighborhood, including the streets where the factory engineers lived. Bela himself, along with his wife and two daughters, Tamar (Aggie) born in 1927 and Naomi Crusoe born in 1939, lived in the new neighborhood in Nesher for the next 33 years. In addition to the factory project in Nesher, at the end of the twenties of the last century, Bela was asked to plan renovations in the Franciscan church complex in Nazareth. His brother Louis, who was also an engineer and lived in Berlin at the time, came to Israel to help him with the project.
