After spending the first night on the hill of the future settlement and meeting sunrise over Jerusalem mountains, the settlers uttered the words of the book of Isaiah, "I am the first to Zion." That's how the town got his name "First to Zion", Rishon LeZion. But in the autumn of that same year, due to the financial crisis and disagreements in the settlement council, Zalman David Levontin left the settlement and returned to Russia, receiving a receipt from the settlers that they have no claims to him. Joseph Feinberg, a native of Crimea, Levontin's colleague, who acquired European education and spoke European languages, was delegated by settlers to Paris in order to enlist the financial help of Baron Rothschild. Rothschild allocated 25,000 francs to the settlers, but he made his support conditional upon the fact that the settlement will be led by Samuel Hirsch, a direct protégé of Baron, a reformist Rabbi and philosopher of Jewish origin from Germany. Here a new stage in the history of Rishon LeZion begins. A house near which we stand was built in 1883 on the money from that same amount of 25,000 francs and was intended for a settlement doctor, a pharmacist Zvi Pusicelski originally from the island of Corfu in Greece. Six years Pusicelski held the position, and in 1899 left Rishon Lezion and moved to Jaffa, and then to Cairo in Egypt, where he died in 1906. Later there was a post office and a city council in this house.
This is a special tour and a unique route. Its difference from the usual city tour is that your mobile phone is the guide. As in every excursion, it takes time to get used to the tour guide, his style, rhythm and pathways. The only difference is that in this case, you are the storyteller, you are walking yourself and set the pace for yourself - all according to your style. Just give yourself time to get used to it and you will come to life with a story full of the vicissitudes of the lives of real people, a story about their joys and sorrows, a story in which urban legends rise from the past, instill hope and simply sums up: here it all began.
