The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-06-20
z|ON|SM REVIVED
 BY EUROPEAN WAR Ambitious Plans Being Made
 for End of Struggle BUY SYRIAN LANDS
Jews in America Purchasing Vast Tracts in the Holy Land-Jews of World Looking to Those in the
 United States for Leadership

New York, June Special. )-If the war in Europe changed the out look for the better of any cause more quickly and more radically than it did that of Zionism among Jews of Amei
 lea and of the world that cause. what ever 1t be, has not vet been discoy- cred. A year ago a few Jews were Zionists; the vast majority were not And they were rather zealously not They fought the plan. often by ridicule, deadly weapon. Today almost all Jews are Zionists The change was brought about by the war and by the probable fall of the Turkish power in Syria. American Jews are leading Jews of the world are watching what Jews here do and say.
 In Boston beginning on June 20. and lasting a week, there is to be Zion ist week. The Federation of Amer ican Zionists hold a congress and va rious other Jewish organizations hold congresses, conventions, conferences These other Jewish bodies include the Knights of Zion, strongest in the mid de west and composed chiefly of lay men; the Order of Sons of Zion Hadas- sch, composed of Jewish Women Poale Zion, Misrachi, and the Young Judeans. Conventions are to sit in the old City club and in the synagogues. The re- markable growth of Zionists is shown by the fact that the American fed eration has 155 organizations affiliated with it. all growing, and all in favor of the new movement in Palestine. It is now claimed that three in four of all American Jews are Zionists.
 It may well be asked: Precisely what is Zionism among the Jews? The an- swer is that it is an effort to satisfy that longing among Jews: longing centuries old, for national and relg ious home; a home that is their own; a home that is in the land of the Bible home where there is not only pol itics but where religious Judaism as serts itself and grows. All Jews agree that with the end of this great war must come a solution of the Jewish problem that will stay solved for all time and most Jews hold firmly the point that home in Syria will furnish such solution.
 Looking Here for Leadership
 Jews do not reckon that all of their number, about 14,000,000. will migrate to Palestine That is not their thought or expectation Some Jews now in America desire to go there. Many more in Russia, in Poland. in Austria, In Ger many. in England, are looking to Jews in this country to lead in plans that may make it possible for them to go there. The expectation is that Palestine can become Jewish state of 4,000,00G, besides other races remaining there. Here Jews make have a home even If all Jews do not reside in it. Here Jews may demonstrate successful government, based on those ideas of Jewish patri- archs with which Christians are fa- miliar but which they do not follow. Here as one Zionist leader, the Rev. Dr II. Pereira Mendes of New York, puts 1t, there may be established a great Hebrew university for the study of world questions; one that will empha- size the spiritual state of the world ex- isting for the world; and that goes farther even than Lincoln's programme for a nation. and teach government of the people, for the peoples of the world, and under God, by the peoples of the world"
 American Jews have already entered into Zionist plans. Jews of St Louis have just bought 5000 acres of land quite near to the shores of the Sea of Galilee. One hundred and fifty Jews of New York, joining In a plan, have in- vested $455,0 900 in a tract near Haifa. Some Chicago Jews have purchased a tract not far from the Cana, where was the wedding feast mentioned by St. John. Sixty Jews of Winnipeg have bought a vast tract near the Sea of Joppa, and Pittsburg and Cleveland Jews are interested in tract of 1so0 acres not far from the Armageddon about which so much is heard in polit- cal literature of our day.
 If one consults a map, possibly the map found in the back of his Bible. he finds that desert fills the very center of the region that Jews must occupy if they call Palestine home. The fact is that until a few years since almost all of the Holy Land was desert in the sense that it was treeless, and its acres raised next to nothing in the way of crops. All that has changed. Deserts are no more deserts in Palestine than In our own west Expert tillers of land have seen to that. Trees now grow in Palestine. and the land raises g1 eat crops of grain and harvests of fruits Very large numbers of Jews already live In Palestine, of course, and there are considerable cities. True, Jerusalem has barely a population of 45,00O, but pa- mascus is a thriving city of 14O.OoO Beirut one of 120.000. and Bagdad, away eff in the east. 145.0OO. Joppa has t0,- 900. ancient Antioch 1700O. Hebron 10000. and the Tarsus where St. Paul came from 22,000.
 Region Jews Want
 The region which Jews covet for a home extends from the sea eastward 10 the Euphrates, and perhaps beyond taking in not only Syria but perhaps part Of Mesopotamia. Possibly it may extend into Anatolia, and northward into kurdistan and Armenia Ancient Babylon will then be within its borders ana so may parts of the great Bagdad raiiway line. which Constantinople in favorable hands is to be the route to India by the way of the Persian gulf rather than around Spain. through the Glnraltar straits, the Suez canal and the Red sea. Here is a region consider ably larger in square miles than France So far as territory goes therefore. com petent to make a Jewish one of the great states of the world
 few months ago there was tenta- lively formed in England a Christian committee on the Holy Land that i'm mediately sounded their acquaintance in America on the subject of creating. should Turkey fall and the council of war at last have the disposal of Pales- tine in its plans. a great educational resort. It's aim was not & political state at all. but center of instruction and inspiration for Christians of the world Fortunes of war not going England s way altogether. nothing of late has been heard of this plan. These English Christians were. however. sufficiently alive to business to say to American Christians that a first need of the pro posed Palestine resort would be the de- velopment of rapid transit lines, al ready begun, so that electric railways