This article is from Ha’aretz by Lital Levin:

Israel awaited the celebration of the 1954 wine harvest festival with high expectations. Such a festival is a new-old one for Jews. As one of its promoters told Haaretz: “In the Bible and our literature in general, a lot of space is dedicated to wine. Noah was the first wine producer; legend says that the tree of knowledge was a grape vine. The many drinking songs of our medieval literature are also well-known. But that’s not enough, because we’ve detached ourselves from the tradition in the meantime, and now we have to renew it and celebrate a harvesting lifestyle worthy of the name.”

These remarks were published on August 11, the day the 1954 festival opened. But this was not the first such celebration: “Fifteen years ago a modest festival was held in the moshav of Zichron Yaakov. When the participants descended into the cold wine cellars for a tour at the height of the festivities, it was decided to make it a yearly event,” Haaretz wrote. But wars broke out and played havoc with the tradition. In 1954 Israel was in the midst of an attempt to revive it.

The interior of a winery.

Photo by: AP

The first modern wine harvest festival in the country was held in Zichron Yaakov in August 1952 and was celebrated together with the moshav’s 70th birthday. “For several years there have been requests to mark the occasion of the grape harvest, because there is no other such community whose farmers live from their grapes and the wine industry,” Haaertz reported. “For the first time, various groups here want to give the harvest festival some form and content.” Of course, there were those who “asked how it was possible to justify a festival in this time of austerity; where would the budget come from? But they were answered that the lives of the common folk are motivated by joy as well as concern for what the next day will bring.” The festival supporters cited the age-old harvest traditions in other Mediterranean countries, where “the celebrations are of a popular character and are accompanied by rituals hundreds of years old.”

The festival that began on August 11, 1954, showed that Israel was not yet ready to revive the tradition. On the eve of the event, one expert told Haaretz that “such festivals cannot be produced in one year,” and that “a long tradition, especially of wine drinking, is required – something which we lack.” The day itself was a bitter disappointment. “Hundreds of people who came from all over the country, including tourists brought in especially for the festival, left crestfallen,” Haaretz reported. “Many people were forced to return after midnight from the moshav to the main Haifa-Tel Aviv highway and hitchhike home, since no transportation had been arranged for them.”

“The streets of Zichron Yaakov looked just as they had in the olden days, without any special decorations,” Haaretz wrote. “The artistic program lacked the most basic organization. There was no loudspeaker, even though the performances took place outside, and the singer” – Shoshana Damari, a special festival attraction – “could barely be heard.”

The report continued: “The ushers’ explanations and instructions could not be heard at all. Hundreds of people swarming through the entrance doors raised a racket. The electricity on stage went off exactly when the dancers appeared.”

The dancers performed in the dark; someone who sought to save the situation turned on a glaring spotlight, blinding the audience. “Close to 500 people, including many tourists, had to stand for all the performances, even though they had paid high prices for seats.” It was because of those prices that “most of the Zichron farmers and grape harvesters, for whom the festival was held, had to remain outside.” One of them told the Haaretz reporter: “This isn’t a wine festival for harvesters; it’s a champagne festival for the aristocrats of Tel Aviv and Haifa.”

And a reader from Zichron wrote to Haaretz that it was impossible to get any wine in the moshav that day.

The grape harvest was not celebrated the next year. The Zichron local council said the cancellation was due to “elections that clashed with the pre-festival preparation period.” Haaretz reported that government tourism officials decided to send “two representatives from Zichron to the 10-day wine festival in Frascati, Italy, to learn how to prepare for a harvest and wine festival.”