Al-Zughraniya

Al-Zughraniyya (Arabic: الزغرانية), commonly known in Hebrew as Khan Zera‘oniya (ח'אן זרעוניה), is a late Ottoman rural estate west of Binyamina-Giv'at Ada near Caesarea Maritima. Founded by Bosnian Muslim landholders in the 1880s and later acquired by the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA), it served in the British Mandate period as a PICA experimental farm. It is one of the Bosnian estates established around Qisarya (Caesarea), alongside al-Manshiya, al-Sufsafa, Burj al-Kheil and Hudaydun.^[1]

Historical transcriptions vary: al-Zarġāniyya/Zarganiya, az-Zargūniya, Zarkaniya, Zar‘aniya, and the modern Hebrew Zera‘oniya. The estate was often linked to nearby Nahal Taninim (Wadi az-Zarqa)—with qāf shifting to g or ʿayn in local pronunciation—or interpreted in modern Hebrew as relating to zeraʿ (“seed”).^[2][3] Despite the common label khan (caravanserai), the complex was conceived and used as a private manor farm rather than a roadside inn.^[4]

The estate lies on a site with earlier occupation; a survey recorded Byzantine-period sherds around the building and well-house.^[5] In the late 1870s–1880s, following the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian Muslim migrants were settled by Ottoman authorities in and around Caesarea; estates were founded across the surrounding fields.^[6] The tract known on historical maps as Zarkaniya/Zarganiya was assigned to a Bosnian notable named Sadeq Pasha, whose residence was built at the estate’s highest point to command the fields and avoid the Kabara marshlands; later owners included Fawzi Bey and his brother Jamal Bey, while Tawfiq Bey resided in the manor.^[7]

In the early 20th century the property was purchased by the Jewish Colonization Association to prepare for Jewish agricultural settlement. In 1920 a group of demobilized Jewish Legion veterans briefly settled at the estate, followed in 1921 by the “California Group” and the “Dutch Group,” the latter influenced by agronomist Zelig Soskin’s intensive methods; both groups later moved into Binyamina.^[8] PICA then operated the site as an experimental farm cultivating jasmine for perfumery, grape varieties and fruit trees, and raising eucalyptus seedlings under British Mandate afforestation concessions; severe malaria in summer forced seasonal relocation of workers to Caesarea.^[9] Press accounts and later recollections also document the site’s use as a PICA trial station and its small interwar population.^[10]

By the 1960s the building was privately held and locally listed for preservation. After receivership proceedings, a long-term lease tender in 2005 was awarded to Shula and Ze’ev Moses, who renovated and adapted parts of the compound as private residences; public access remains limited.^[11]

In the early 1920s, al-Zughraniyya—by then a former Bosnian estate acquired by the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA)—became the site of an incident remembered as the Ben Zvi affair. The estate had been converted into a Jewish agricultural settlement, inhabited by ikarim (farmers) and their Arab laborers. Among the settlers was a young activist recorded in contemporary files as "Ben Tsvi," who became involved in communist circles in Hadera and the northern coastal plain.^[12]

According to surviving British CID intelligence reports, Ben Tsvi’s activities at al-Zughraniyya included teaching Arabic to fellow Russian Jewish communists, recruiting Arab workers, and distributing communist pamphlets in Arabic and Russian. His correspondence—confiscated in 1924—linked him with Trotskyist networks in Palestine, Egypt, and Russia.^[13] His efforts to organize Arab labor within the Zionist-owned estate alarmed both Arab nationalists and Zionist leaders, as they blurred community boundaries and undercut nationalist loyalties.^[14]

Although remembered mainly as a localized dispute, the affair reflected deeper political rifts in the region. For Arab villagers it symbolized Zionist encroachment on former Bosnian lands, while for the Yishuv’s leadership it exposed the dangers of communist infiltration within the new colonies. In later years, Arab communists would join the Palestine Communist Party, but the episode at al-Zughraniyya highlighted the volatility of labor relations and the competing ideologies that shaped the early Mandate period.^[15]

The compound is a quadrangular kurkar-stone manor enclosing a single-entry courtyard; portions incorporate spolia from Caesarea. A partial second storey housed the owners; ground-floor rooms originally opened only to the inner court, with later exterior windows added by 20th-century groups. Nearby stands an antilia (saqiya) well, later coupled to a diesel pump and metal piping for field irrigation.^[16][17]

• Caesarea Maritima
• Bosnians in Palestine
• Bayyarat al-Khuri
• Barrat Qisarya

• Official website (archived)
• Media related to Q121640780 on Wikimedia Commons