The number of Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine rose from 50 in 1919 to 203 at the beginning of 1937, the United Palestine Appeal said in a report which emphasized that further Jewish growth was dependent in large measure upon acquisition of additional land for settling Jewish agricultural population.
At the end of June, 1936, the report said, Jewish-owned land totalled 1,255,790 dunams registered on title-deeds and another 85,860 metric dunams held in concession from the Government, making a total of 1,341,560 metric dunams, of which 58 per cent was acquired since the war. The Jewish-owned area comprises about five per cent of all western Palestine.
Not all the area owned by Jews is suitable for agriculture, the report said, the actual arable land being less than a million dunams. At the end of 1936 the area already settled and developed by Jews was 800,000 dunams, compared with 342,000 in 1927 and 198,000 in 1929.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
