Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1917-12-27
SUCCESSES IN HOLY
LAND HAVE MADE POSI-
BILE REALIZATION OF OLD
DREAM OF w FOR Ma
TI0NAL O NJ AND REFUGE.
From tho Spectator, London.

<AASllOy y UIAAl1dAlt OpeIlluS vi
the campaign in Palestine lends sig
nificance to the agitation among British
Jews for "the reconstruction of Pales-
tine as the national home Of the Jewish
people," to which the government have
promised their support. The idea is very
old-so old, indeed, that it has for many
meaning. We may look back through
the ages to the fatal year 1874. when
Hadrlan took Jerusalem, stamped out
bar Cochba's revolt In blood and for
bade the Jews to settle again in Judea,
and trace the more or less feeble efforts
or the oppressed people to regain their
old home. But as the centuries passed
the Jews Of the dispersion were con-
m in the belief that the return to
zion, for which they prayed in their
synagogues. would not be accomplished
IN this world: a very small minority
interpreted literally their traditional
ngin and migrated to the Holy
Ian Land. 1T is true that Palestine offered
rev attractions for energetic traders
ma artisans. The Mongol and Tartar
!hVaslons of the Thirteenth and Four
:eenth centuries worked havoc through
Dut the near east and Palestine was laid
waste with such barbaric thoroughness
elat IL mas never yet recovered from
the shock. The early Turkish sultans.
" Id llS NlfSIllll-
cent. Henry WIS contemporary, were
friendly to the Jews, as the caliphs had
peen before them, and admitted the
rug fleeing from the Spanish in
QUESTION. The late sultans We're not
hostile and little waves of immigration
from Poland, Russia, Austria and Ru-
mania broke at long intervals on the
silent shores, where, as Gibbon say
once resounded the worlds debate.
Napoleon, with the insight of genius,
proposed to found a Jewish state in
Palestine when he was besieging Acre,
put his proposal was coldly received in
JeWry and was dropped. A few thou
sand Jews. virtually all immigrants or
the descendants of immigrants, eked
out a wretched existence in the decayed
towns of Palestine. They were sup
ported to a large extent by the Cha
ukah," or system Of charitable funds
to which the Jews all over Europe con-
trlbuted. nominally for the support of
poor scholars studying in the holy
places. This small and pauperized
community offered no basis for a state
such as Napoleon had in mind.
The revival of Palestine as a Jewish
land nay be said to date from about the
year 1910. when Mehemet Ali's claim
to Syria had set the powers by the ears
ana directed attention to that part OF
the Turks dominions.
y GIL W DC IlO IlOTe
$4,000 Jews in all Palestine. By
1880 there were $4,000 Jews in Jerusa-
alone. George Eliot in Daniel De-
ronda I876) expressed in eloquent
terms the idea that Palestine should be
"a republic where the Jewish spirit
itself in a new order found
ed on the DID," and Laurence Oliphant
q few years later tried hard to start a
agricultural settlement east Of
the Jordan for some Rumanian refu-
But the Jews of western Eurone
and America took little interest in the
subject until 1t vas forced upon them
by the Russian "pogroms" in 1881 and
1882. The thousands Of wretched folk
fleeing from the horrors Of the Pale
compelled their fellow Jews in happie
and to consider whether a systematic
emigration from Russia and Rumania
Palestine would not solve. at least
In part, the problem Of Jewry in east
ern Europe. Many of the refugees
went to the Holy Land, and it is they
who. with help from the west, formed
the Jewish colonies which. until the
p%ecially at Tel Aviv, the garden suburb
OF Jafa, and at Zichron Jacob, near
Samaria, whose early Rumanian set
tiers We're assisted by Oliphant. The
universal compassion felt for the suf-
ferers stirred Jewry to its depths. The
society OF "Cheveve Zion" or Lovers
OF Zion" was founded in 1884, and soon
Jews, lived Baron Edmond de Roths-
child gave literally both Of his time
and money for the organization of the
Jewish settlements, and especially for
in the widest sense. Baron
Hlrsch left 10000 900 for the work of
the Jewish Colonization association.
n political side Of the new move
m AMI UQC CtSl1 f,,~f1~- ~~. z3--5 ~
Dr. Theodore Herzl, the Austro-
Journalist, founded the Zionist
in 1896, with the object Of
all Jews in the world over in
an EFFORT to set VI a Jewish state.
Dr. Herzl himself did not care very
much where that state should be-; but
the first Zionist congress, held at Basic
secured by public law" should be in
The attempt to secure a
charter from the sultan failed. The
office in 1903 made conditional
offer of land in British East Africa,
which was lot accepted. Then the
Jewlsh territorial organization. under
the lead Of Mr.. Zangwill, prospected
possible sites for Jewish colonies in
Cyrenaica and in Angola, but nothing
or these suggestions. Meanwhile
the zionist organization, with it's adj
illustrative center in Germany, first at
n then at Berlin, n its
headquarters in london, con-
tlnued, In common with other Jewish
societies. to assist the Jewish settlers
in Palestine. The settlers suffered by |
the fail Of Abdul Hamid, for the Young
Turks made it clear from the outset |
that they would abolish all special pri-
vileges to alien races, and would, for
example, compel Christians and Jews
as we'll as Turks to serve in the army.
Yet before the war broke out the Jews
In Palestine were prospecting. They
said to number 1875, 0O0-or 10
as many az. the Palestinian Jews
Of 184O-and half of them lived in Jeru-
salem, which had once more become
p predominantly Jewish city. Immi-
grants from Russia and Rumania con-
ttnued to arrive, and work was found
Tor them on the land. All that was
to assur the growth Of a Jew
lsh community in Palestine was an !
honest and benevolent administration.
but this the Young Turks neither could
nor would provide.
British Jews seem to be far more en- !
about Zionism than they
were before the war. perhaps be-
being a practical people, they
see that the project car nov be rea-
lied. The British government, after q
Iong n careful examination OF the
have promised to use their best
to carry It out, and we un-
1erstand that President Wilson II a
hearty Nunn0rfor ~ <hA nro@ac< r,,,I,~ =. 1