Ramat Ha Nadiv - History

History

Umm el-'Aleq was a small Palestinian Arab village where in the nineteenth century a farmstead (Beit Khouri) was constructed by the Palestinian Arab Christian family of el-Khouri from Haifa. The Baron Edmond James de Rothschild purchased the land from the el-Khouri family. The Third Aliyah settlers changed the name of the region to Ummlaleq ("the miserable one"). The Third Aliyah settlers lasted only 3 months. The malarial mosquitoes proved to be an impediment to settlement within the region.

Baron Rothschild died in 1934 at Château Rothschild, Boulogne-Billancourt. His wife Adelaide died a year later on December 29, 1935. They were interred in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris until April 1954 when their remains were transported to Israel aboard a naval frigate. At the port of Haifa, the ship was met with sirens and a nineteen-gun salute. A state funeral was held with former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion giving the eulogy following which Edmond de Rothschild and his wife were re-interred in a crypt in the Memorial Gardens of Ramat HaNadiv. For his Jewish philanthropy Baron Edmond became known as "HaNadiv HaYadu'a" (Hebrew for "The Known Benefactor" or "The Famous Benefactor") and in his memory his son bequeathed the funds to construct the building for the Knesset.