Die Entdeckung des Urweizens: Wissen zwischen ideologischer und praktischer Anwendung in Palästina

This article is aimed at reconstructing one chapter in the history of plants in the Yishuv (the community of Jewish residents in Palestine before Israel’s establishment) by highlighting the complex relationship between science, politics, and Zionist ideology. The Jewish-Palestinian settler Aaron Aaronsohn rediscovered in 1906 the so called “Urweizen”, the “mother of wheat”. This discovery stimulated a transnational scientific debate about nothing less than the origins of civilization. Plant research was therefore symptomatic for a science that pretended to be objective but was nevertheless shaped by ideology. At the same time, the Zionists were well aware of the practical application and the economic potential that the knowledge about the “mother of wheat” generated.