Crafting Colonial Companions: Zionist Botany in Palestine, 1900-1930s*

In the early twentieth century, agricultural research played an important role in the Zionist movement's efforts to increase Palestine's productivity and to facilitate large-scale Jewish settlement. Recent historiography has started to recognize the importance of agronomists and botanists as central actors in the broader project of Jewish-Zionist knowledge production in and of Palestine. This article uses Haraway's concept of companion species to analyze two initiatives by Jewish plant researchers who, through different strategies, pursued a common goal: expanding botanical knowledge of Palestine, mobilizing plant life to advance political claims and alliances, and thereby contributing to the realization of a Jewish state. The case studies focus on the establishment of the first Jewish agricultural experiment station by agronomist Aaron Aaronsohn in 1910, and the creation of the botanical garden at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem by botanists Otto Warburg and Alexander Eig in 1931. Both projects exemplify how nature and culture were co-produced in the service of Zionist nation-building-using the Palestinian plant world to establish scientific authority, forge international alliances, and help delineate both epistemic and territorial boundaries.