Evening star., 1937-05-02

10000 Je1UiSh refugees from
Germany 7Oho hare found q
hdren in Palestine.
BY CHARLES EDWARD RUSSELL,
Liberal writer and president of the Pro-
Palestine Federation
w YOVEN into and around
a. Nationwide appeal for
" " funds launched in this
country last week are two
unusual stories, one Of an old nation
now on its way to restoration and the
other of an old nation that, being re-
stored. fell into trouble
While the big world has gone on
clattering and changing with its busy
armament factories, its great guns
and its new gas bombs. its air fleets
and its sea fleets, its futile blockadeS
and its collapSng League Of Nations,
down at the eastern end of the Medi-
terranean something has been devel-
oping likely to have more profound
influence upon the history and prog
ress Of mankind than all the great
ms now in existence.
Just 40 years have passed since the
first Zionist Congress seriously pro-
posed to the world the stablishing
Of a Jewish homeland, and the re-
appearance, after 1900 years, of Jew
ish nation. In 1897, those upon the
outside that happened to hear of this
suggestion looked upon it as an amia
bic delusion or an impossible dream.
1t is to be believed that of all the
hopeful souls that had part in that
first congress not one expected that
more than the bare foundations of a
Jewish state could begin to rise in his
lifetime. Yet 40 years have seen much
more than those founda tionS, they
have seen the walls rising, the struc-
ture taking veritable and admirable
shape and the outlines of the COM
pleted whole becoming more than a
vision or a promise.
Prophets Foretold Restoration.
There had been throughout the Arab
occupation a few Jews in Palestine
and long before the first congress pious
Jews had been able to crafty their
ardent desires by adding in each gen.
Grafton a score or SO to the slender
number OF their co-religionists. The
prophets of the Bible had foretold
the renaissance of the Jewish state
and a cherished tradition had fixed
millions Of Jewish hearts upon a re-
turn to the Jerusalem from which the
Romans had banished the nation. But
on November 2, 1917, when the event
occurred that changed the whole as
pect Of the cherished Jewish ambition,
there were fewer than $4,000 Jews
in the whole Of Palestine.
The turning point that day was the
unequivocal and rather startling an
nouncement of the support of the
British government to the project of
a restored Jewish nation. This was
the famous Balfour declaration, which
declared that the British government
views with favor the stablishment
in Palestine of national home for
the Jewish people, and will use its
best endeavors to facilitate the achieve
ment of this object" Under this dec
laration, renewed in December, 1920,
when Great Britain assumed the man.
date for Palestine, the return move
ment of Jews to the land of their
fathers was organized. Jews in all
parts of the world subscribed to the
funds necessary to make the return
possible, and the resettlement began.
There are today more than 100000
Jews in Palestine, and in something
like II years they have accomplished
a remarkable demonstration.
They have brought to an old, ap-
parently sterile and largely hopeless
country the vivifying influences of
modern science and methods and
made what was virtually a desert
burst into fertility and productive
ness.
They have galvanized an antique,
outworn and apathetic society into a
humming activity and an astonish-
ing vigor Of life.
Fought Crude Social System.
They found a social system some
what worse than feudalism, leaped 10
centuries in night and introduced
the vital conceptions of the modern
world.
They have built the imposingly
handsome new city of Tel Aviv where
had been only an empty plain. They
have created one new and excellent
harbor and reformed another. They
have founded industries and devel-
oped commercially the chemical re-
sources of the old Dead Sea.
They have gridironed the country
with excellent roads. installed sys-
tenn Of education, established thriv-
modern conceptions and processes Of
culture and frightened the shadows
Of Jerusalem with a grand orches-
ira so good that it drew the unstinted
praises OF Toscanini himself.
They have introduced modern
sanitation, architecture, newspapers,
hospitals, medicine in a land long
surrendered as barred and bulwarked
against anything later than the eighth
century, AID.
They have refuted Kipling by caus-
ing the East to become eminently
West.
They have confounded the wise
men and the pessimists by taking
with enthusiasm to agriculture and