Meanwhile, in Eretz Yisrael itself, these developments were beginning to express themselves in the new Zionist entity (the “New Yishuv”, as it was known) which began growing there from the late nineteenth century.

The new impetus was being felt not only in the New Yishuv itself: at the same time that early Zionist settlement was developing in the years of the First Aliyah (1882-1904), another influence was expressing itself within the “Old Yishuv”, the old urban areas of the pre-Zionist settlement. Since the mid-nineteenth century, primarily in Jerusalem, a number of educational initiatives had been made to improve the lot of the Jewish population - and to enable them to improve their economic staus, using the tools acquired through their education.

These initiatives originated from a series of Western or Central European philanthropists or philanthropic organizations acting on essentially humanitarian motives. They experienced tremendous problems trying to have their agendas accepted by the public for whom they were intended, but they did manage to found a number of schools where, slowly but surely, new elements began to find their way into the curriculum and the culture of the schools.

Two of these Jerusalem schools, the Laeml School and the Alliance [Israelite Francaise] School (or Kol Israel Haverim School, as it was also called), attempted with moderate success in the early years to incorporate some kind of physical education into their schools. In the early twentieth century, the Laeml School in particular would make important advances in the field. The Alliance school actually invested in equipment, but after a number of students were hurt using the equipment, and the school found itself threatened by legal action; they decided to put the equipment away for a number of years and to give the whole subject a lower profile!

Meanwhile, in the early schools of the New Yishuv, which were based in the new agricultural settlements started by the First Aliyah settlers, parallel innovations were being discussed, if for very different reasons. These schools (most of which incidentally were started by religious pioneers) took on the ethos of the Zionist movement in their talk of the need for physical development of the young pupils of the schools. The truth is that they talked more of physical education than they actually practiced, largely because they simply had no idea how to do it.

Most of the teachers were Jewish autodidacts from Eastern Europe, who had no experience at all of the new techniques and methods of physical education that were developing very fast in Central and Western Europe. In these schools there was usually one teacher only - and naturally, most teachers in this situation tended to discard the subjects in which they felt less adequate, even if they accepted the theoretical importance of the subject. It seems, however, that some of these new schools went further than others. The school in Rosh Pinah appears, for one, to have made more progress than others: in 1903, the newly formed Histadrut HaMorim – the Teachers’ Union, formally accepted the importance of physical education. This organization would do a great deal to encourage the subject systematically within the school system.

However, the first school to actually employ a specialist was the Laeml School, who, in 1904, hired the teacher Avraham Goldschmidt, exclusively to teach physical education. Goldschmidt, as mentioned previously, was not the first to teach physical education in the school, but he was the first “professional”. He had trained in Europe and he brought the results of his teaching and his knowledge of equipment to the school. In addition, he taught at the Teacher’s Seminar of the Ezra organization in Jerusalem. As such, he had a major effect through his students who continued on to educational work elsewhere. He himself was a German speaker and is described as somewhat of a foreign implant into the society.

Perhaps because of this, the first place in the pantheon of physical educators is reserved for a man who appeared on the scene a couple of years later, Zvi Neshri.

Neshri was approached by the first major urban Zionist school, the Herzaliah Gymnasia, founded in 1905 in Jaffa. In 1906, the school decided to initiate a full physical education programme. In the absence of a suitable teacher, the principal, Bograshov, turned to Neshri, a recent immigrant who was working in agricultural and small scale industrial jobs, but whose strength and fearlessness made him appear an ideal candidate for the job. Neshri accepted, on condition that within a few months he would be allowed to go and train himself in an educational programme in Europe. During the first summer break he went to his first training programme in Switzerland, where he learned the fundamentals of the profession. Three years later he would return to Europe, to Germany and Scandinavia, where his world-view on the subject of teaching physical education was finally formed.

It was Neshri, more than anyone else, who laid the foundations for the development of physical education as a component of the educational system in Eretz Yisrael. In 1912, in the first enrichment programme for teachers in the country, he was asked to give a course on physical education and according to the descriptions of participants, it is clear that it was received with great enthusiasm. A year later, there was a further enrichment programme, purely on the subject of physical education. In the same year, 1913, the first booklet on physical education was published in the country, written by Neshri. It included a glossary of 178 Hebrew terms relevant to the subject, developed by Neshri together with Goldschmidt, and which had been officially approved by the Hebrew language committee (Vaad Halashon).

With time, Neshri developed a broad based approach to the teaching of physical education. From the first, he included the idea of long hikes, walks and runs to which he had been exposed in his European training. He also included work on the physical apparatus that was the basis of the European system. In time, he added to his repertoire the use of ball games that was the basis of the English system, though it should be noted that he never accepted the competitive philosophy that featured so strongly in Britain.