PALESTINi:. 
 
 , AND THE WAR 
 
 ^a^t JMPRESSIONS ON 
 ^^Wti'vi^ ^ RELIEF TRIP TO 
 THE HOLY LAND 
 
 (With photographs hy the oiithor) 
 
 By Maurice JVertheim 
 
 DEC 31 1914 
 
 :Sin8'S: . - -^r ; 
 
 ON a brilliant morning of last 
 September, just as the sun dis- 
 tinctly outlined the rolling 
 hills of Judaea behind the little 
 port of Jaffa, the United States armored 
 cruiser North Carolina surprised Pales- 
 tine. Not ten-inch guns but the ship's 
 band, striking out in the "Star Spangled 
 Banner," carried the message of America 
 to the Holy Land. The officers stood 
 with uncovered heads on the quarter- 
 deck, and as I joined them in as near 
 an attitude of naval salute as a civilian 
 could muster, I was proud, prouder of 
 our country, and more inspired by the 
 hymn than T had ever been before. For 
 here was a United States battleship 
 carrying to Jews who had sought ref- 
 uge from all over the world, relief in 
 their^hour of need from ^heir American 
 brethren — a noble, stirring example of 
 the freedom and sympathy of America. 
 
 1 had beefi marooned hy the war while 
 on a visit to Constantinople. The Dar- 
 danelles were closed, so that there was 
 nothing for it but to await developments 
 in idlene.ss. But to be idle at such a 
 time, when misery was spreading like 
 flame about us. would have palled upon 
 anyone, so that I gladly accepted the op- 
 portunity growing out of the piteous ap- 
 peal for assistance which reached Am- 
 bassador Morgenthau early in September, 
 from Jewish leaders in Palestine. 
 
 The war had closed their usual chan- 
 nels of assistance and so damaged their 
 trade that the very existence of the 
 Jews in Palestine was threatened. A 
 cable was dispatched by the Ambassador 
 to Jacob H. Schiff. and in little more 
 than forty-eight hours, a reply came 
 from Louis Marshall, acting for the 
 .American Jewish committee, with a sub- 
 scription of $50,000 for the purposes re- 
 quired ! All honor to Schiff, Straus 
 M arshall, and the other contributors and 
 organizers of the fund, who, in giving 
 quickly, gave twice. 
 
 But anyone who knows Turkey, and 
 particularly Turkey in time of war, 
 when gold is scarce and almost impossi- 
 
 C iNCE the outbreak 
 of hostilities be- 
 tween Turkey and 
 England, the situation 
 of the Jewish people 
 of Palestine has be- 
 come, if anything, 
 more precarious than 
 ever. Not the least 
 of the achievements 
 of the Jewish colon- 
 ists in Palestine will 
 he reckoned the initi- 
 ative and leadership 
 they have shared with 
 their coreligionists in 
 this emergency. 
 
 Mr. Wertheim's mis- 
 sion zvas one of re- 
 lief; he found not 
 only pressing need, 
 but an agricultural 
 
 ! 
 
 AN OLD JEWISH 
 WATCH MA KER, WEL!,- 
 rO-I)0 BEFORE WAR, NOW 
 REDUCIED TO PENURY 
 
 ble of transfer when had, knows that 
 for the Ambassador at Constantinople 
 only part of the problem was solved 
 when the money was subscribed in 
 .\merica. In quick succession, however, 
 he overcame the difficulties. Through 
 the courtesy of the Standard Oil Com- 
 pany, he was able to have gold paid to 
 him by their agents in Constantinople 
 against the fund, which was paid to their 
 office in New York. Another cable to 
 the department of state brought the 
 permission to have his agent take tlie 
 money to Jaffa (the port of Jerusalem) 
 on board the North Carolina, which was 
 then headed fur Syria and Palestine with 
 consular relief. 
 
 On a few hours' notice I was selected 
 for the mission, put aboard the North 
 Carolina at the mouth of the Darda- 
 nelles, with numberless suspicious-look- 
 ing sacks and an envelope full of pass- 
 ports. Otherwise my outfit consisted of 
 some hastily packed books on Palestine, 
 my six-shooter and a heavy sense of re- 
 
 sponsibility, — for it was my duty to take 
 the money to all the principal points in 
 Palestine and arrange for its distribution 
 when I had it there. In a country al- 
 most without railroads and noted for 
 the dissension among its communities, 
 neither task appeared very easy. 
 
 Small wonder then, that, on arrival at 
 Jaffa, when the band ceased playing our 
 national anthem and I was well away 
 toward shore with the heavy sacks 
 buoyed in the teneder, I looked with re- 
 gret upon the receding cruiser and her 
 American flag. 
 
 The first glimpse of the quay did not 
 encourage me much. It swarmed with 
 fezzes and turbans and dark, excited 
 humanity. Turks, Arabs, and Jews had 
 huddled themselves into unnatural prox- 
 imity, occupying every square inch of 
 space, so that it seemed as if another 
 comer would surely mean a man in the 
 water. I was glad to find on shore that 
 Dr. Ruppin, one of Palestine's leading 
 Jews, who had been delegated to meet 
 
 353 
 
354 
 
 The Survey, January 2, 1915 
 
 me, had wisely prepared a carriage out- 
 side the quay ; so that with a flying 
 wedge of Jack Tars, we were able to 
 get the bags safely to the carriage and 
 then to the bank vaults. 
 
 To understand why it was that relief 
 work was sent first to the Jews of Pal- 
 estine rather than to the Jews of other 
 countries also affected by the war, re- 
 quires acquaintance with the present 
 Jewish population of that country. 
 Roughly speaking, there are in Palestine 
 about 100,000 Jews, about 85,000 of 
 whom are located in the five main cities 
 
 Spanish, are industrious and self- 
 supporting; the latter, as Ashkenazim, 
 spoke the language of their varied ori- 
 gin, and, from the nature of their immi- 
 gration, rely largely for support upon 
 contributions from their families at 
 home and from religious Jews all over 
 the world. 
 
 The more interesting population, how- 
 ever, is that of the colonies, a product 
 of thirty-five years, which, taken to- 
 gether, now reaches the respectable total 
 of 15,000. These are almost exclusively 
 Jews from the Diaspora — that is to say, 
 
 and have come of their own accord. 
 Lastly, there are in Palestine, as if to 
 emphasize the wandering character of 
 the race, some few thousand Jews from 
 Morocco, Piokhara, and the district of 
 southern Arabia, known as Yemen. They 
 are miserably poor and, except for the 
 ever-present side curls, irrecognizable as 
 J ews. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that the present 
 Jewish population in Palestine is by no 
 mean indigenous. Paradoxically enough, 
 in spite of the glorious association of 
 the land with the ancient historv of the 
 
 MASQUE OF OMAR 
 
 The shrine of the Moslems, who make up four-fifths 
 of the resident population in Palestine. 
 
 The Christian 
 
 religious purposes 
 
 GARDEN OF GF/ni SEM A N K 
 
 sects m Jerusalem are largely there for 
 
 The people are few in number. 
 
 of Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Saffed, and 
 Tiberias. The remainder are scattered 
 about in separate little agricultural com- 
 munities known as "Jewish colonies." 
 
 Of the Jewish population of the cities, 
 about one-third are older settlers who 
 took refuge there generations ago be- 
 cause of oppression in Spain. Two- 
 thirds are newer arrivals of the last 
 forty years, drawn from all over the 
 world — some because of persecution, but 
 most because of a devout wish to spend 
 their last days in the Holy City. The 
 former, known as .Sephardim, spoke 
 
 Poland, Russia, Galicia and Roumania, 
 where the lot of the Jews is the worst 
 on earth — who have fled to Palestine 
 from pogroms and persecution. Their 
 arrival was largely made possible by the 
 far-seeing philanthropy of Baron Ed- 
 mond de Rothschild, of Paris, who ac- 
 quired large tracts of land in Palestine 
 and offered it to the refugees on minute 
 instalments with little or no interest. 
 
 Agricultural colonization has also been 
 assisted by the Zionist organizations; 
 and there are, too, groups of colonists 
 who have made their own arrangements 
 
 Jewish race, the Arabs now there con- 
 sider the Jews as foreigners, and have 
 some cause to do so, outnumbering them 
 as they do, four to one. It is, neverthe- 
 less, the ancient association which has 
 drawn the present Jew there. To those 
 who suffered persecution, it is home ; to 
 those who are deeply religious, it is 
 holy. But whether it be of one class 
 or another, the presence of all is due to 
 reasons religious or racial, and as it is 
 difficult for immigrants of this order to 
 gain a foothold in a new country, it is 
 natural that Jews throughout the world 
 
Palestine and the War 
 
 355 
 
 should consider them a special charge 
 and send them reliei first in times of 
 stress. 
 
 With the fund safely stowed away in 
 the bank as "closed depot," I entered 
 upon my second duty — to observe. The 
 American givers had particularly re- 
 quested personal supervision over the 
 distribution of the fund ; so that before 
 even considering relief measures, it was 
 necessary for me to get as complete a 
 picture of the country and as thorough 
 an understanding of its Jews, and the 
 various Palestinian movements as I 
 
 The horrors of a ritual murder trial 
 and of Russian pogrons flashed through 
 my mind as I looked on the bent man, 
 and I knew theen, even better, why re- 
 lief had been sent to Palestine. 
 
 In arranging for my "seeing" trip, my 
 Americanism did not desert me. There 
 was only one automobile in Palestine, a 
 little, two-cylindered, old-fashioned af- 
 fair, but as it would take me quicker, I 
 hired it. Parts of the trip I made, had 
 been made before in an automobile, but 
 as far as I am able to learn, I am the 
 first man to have covered the entire 
 
 edge of this that my car protested. Had 
 it been human I should not have blamed 
 it, as my companion — Mr. Aaronsohn — 
 told me it was the worst place in Pales- 
 tine for Bedouins and robbers. I was 
 carrying $5,000 in gold, which I wrapped 
 in my coat and propped as a pillow un- 
 der one of those ancient, gnarled, broad- 
 branching olive trees which are the 
 monuments of the interior of Palestine. 
 Two hours of sleep was all that I had 
 had in the forty-eight previous, so that 
 I was willing to wait for something to 
 happen. It eventually did, in the shape 
 
 could in a short time. 
 
 On the threshold of my task — that is, 
 even before I had left the bank — my 
 interest was aroused to enthusiasm. On 
 a bench in a corner, evidently waiting 
 to draw some money, sat a Russian Jew, 
 dark, spectacled, and patient. He was 
 smoking a cigarette — I don't know why 
 I should particularly remember the ciga- 
 rette, except that it seemed he was not 
 quite used to it. His high forehead and 
 the deep furrows of his face compelled 
 me to ask who he was. 
 
 Mendel Beiliss ! 
 
 country in a car. Don't think I am 
 proud of it ; anyone would shudder at 
 flying past well-remembered Biblical 
 names. But it was done to get me to 
 my work quicker — and then, the car 
 didn't exactly "fly." Once it refused 
 even to crawl, and, as always happens, 
 it was at the most unfortunate time and 
 in the most unfortunate place. 
 
 I was on my way from Jerusalem to 
 a Jewish colony in the interior, called 
 Zichron-Jacob, to reach which one had 
 to traverse a bare, deserted plain, 
 twenty-five miles across. It was on the 
 
 of a mule and four Arabs, who dis- 
 tributed themselves variously — one on 
 the hood' of the recalcitrant machine, 
 one on the back of its equally recalcit- 
 rant savior, and the others in tmcom- 
 fortable positions in the motor. 
 
 After five miles of pulling, stopping 
 and kicking — mostly the latter two — our 
 good mule jolted us into the Arab town 
 of Tulkarem, a metropolis of about 
 seventy-five souls where, as usual, "for 
 the first time in ten years," I was as- 
 sured, no carriage was to be had. As 
 darkness- came on, I had visions of a 
 
356 
 
 \ 
 
 The Survey, January 2, 19J5 
 
 night under the olive tree, and besides, 
 grew hungrier as it grew darker. At 
 an Arab cafe we had some sour cream, 
 some dough that only faintly resembled 
 bread, and some meat-balls, and when 
 we were through, evidently as an after- 
 thought, we were given forks. 
 
 Finally there arrived a conveyance 
 something like our prairie wagons, and 
 we began our long night drive with re- 
 volvers loaded and cocked. Toward 
 midnight I was sharply awakened from 
 a drowse by the report of a gun. I saw 
 my driver crumple up under the covers, 
 and I felt myself all over to see if I 
 were wounded, never having had any 
 past experience to tell how it would feel. 
 However, it did not turn out to be a 
 tragedy. The commotion had been 
 caused by some frightened Turks in the 
 one other wagon on the same route, who 
 were firing their guns to prove to possi- 
 ble robbers that they were armed. The 
 shots continued until 2 a. m. when we 
 gladly pulled up at the sleeping colony. 
 
 The Relief Problem 
 
 (ienerally speaking, I found that the 
 war had necessitated relief in Palestine 
 for three main reasons : first, it had cut 
 off, as with the stroke of an axe, the 
 demand for Palestinian products ; second, 
 it had interrupted the ordinary means of 
 communication on which Palestine is de- 
 pendent for its food supply ; and third, 
 as far as the Jewish people were con- 
 cerned, it had cut ofi the usual sources 
 of revenue. Other than its export of 
 oranges, almonds and wine, Palestine de- 
 pends industrially upon souvenirs and 
 antiquities purchased by the tourists. In 
 times like these, that industry, of course, 
 is the first to suffer, and naturally prices 
 of agricultural products that are articles 
 of semi-luxury, are also greatly affected. 
 
 Consequently when I arrived at Pales- 
 tine I found unemployment general, and 
 it was with that problem that I had 
 largely to deal. No money, no goods, 
 hardly any news entered the country ; 
 the source of all the food supply hung 
 by the slight thread of one or two lines 
 of ships which were still running. It 
 seemed to me like a land dazed and limp 
 utterly overcome by the situation in 
 which it found itself. Typical of this 
 condition were the orange groves of the 
 Judaean colonies. I saw wide, blooming 
 fields of fruit which I was told would 
 be allowed to rot, because the oranges 
 could not be sold for the money it 
 would cost to get them to the markets. 
 
 Let it be said, however, to the credit 
 of the colonists and of all the wealthier 
 Jewish population of Palestine, that they 
 did all in their power to furnish labor 
 to their employes, even when they would 
 have profited by stopping work. 
 
 Of course the case was not so ex- 
 tremely bad in the colonies, as there, at 
 least, people were able largely to feed 
 themselves. Their greatest difficulty lay 
 in unemployment, since with cutting off 
 the markets it would soon prove im- 
 
 possible for employers, even with 'the 
 best of intentions, to continue to empfoy 
 their laborers. And when you consider 
 that the labor element in the colonies 
 is largely composed of penniless Jews 
 who had migrated there for just that 
 work, you will understand that it was 
 no light problem. 
 
 In the cities, and in Jerusalem in par- 
 ticular, there was no work, there was 
 no money — there was no hope of relief. 
 It is only necessary to realize that nine- 
 tenths, if not more, of the activities of 
 Jerusalem are supported by foreign cap- 
 
 YEMENITE CHILDREN IN A P.-M-ESTINE 
 COLONY 
 
 They are from southern Arabia, 
 and except for the ever-present side 
 curls are irrecognizable as Jews. 
 
 tal, to understand the demoralization 
 that confronted them. Hospitals, asy- 
 lums, schools, homes for the aged and 
 insane, had no means of continuing, and 
 some had already closed when I arrived. 
 Alany individuals, too, were in the same 
 position as the hospitals, since they also 
 lived on foreign remittances, the only 
 difference being that they could not close 
 their doors and be done with it. 
 
 At the time of my visit the pinch was 
 just beginning to be felt in earnest, and 
 naturally it was in the poorer Jewish 
 quarters — the Moroccan and Yemenite, 
 that I saw its first real effects. Gaunt 
 frames of the sick and starving were 
 lying tier on tier on bunks or on the 
 filthy earthen floors of little black holes 
 that could not be called rooms. Piteously 
 they held out their hands for food and 
 I shuddered to think how the same mis- 
 ery might spread among those less accus- 
 tomed to bear it. 
 
 With such a large problem before me, 
 I realized that the sum I had with me 
 would have to be carefully husbanded 
 to be effective. It is interesting to know 
 that from all sides of Palestine I re- 
 ceived requests that the fund be used in 
 as productive a manner as possible. Yet 
 at every moment it became increasingly 
 difficult to heed these counsels of 
 common-sense and not distribute im- 
 mediately food and money to all those I 
 saw in need of both. 
 
 I remember an incident which oc- 
 
 curred one day in the offices of the 
 American Consulate, which were put at 
 my disposal by our consul at Jerusalem, 
 Dr. Glazebrook, whose eflforts to relieve 
 the situation have been untiring. I was 
 1 in the inner office endeavoring by five- 
 ininute appointments to see all of the 
 crowd of a hundred or more who had 
 svvarmed to the Consulate to give me 
 advice or to tell me their troubles. The 
 people were crowded in the vestibule 
 outside, when I suddenly heard cries 
 and a'^'-^commotion. I threw open the 
 door ju^t in time to see the dragoman 
 grasp a knife from the hand of a man 
 for whom '-^^ evidently was the last hope; 
 for when td{d he could not see me that 
 day, he tried*'|o take his life. 
 
 Loa^s on Labor 
 
 The final planVf relief took several 
 forms which varW in the different 
 coiTimunities. Our \overning commit- 
 tee was composed of mdUJiatLJ frwrn the 
 various sections, who in turn had local 
 committees under them. The fund was 
 divided in proportion to population, and 
 in all sections the guiding plan was to 
 supply only food necessities and no 
 money, — and then mainly, except' in the 
 case of the helpless, to those who were 
 willing to work for it. Having estab- 
 lished soup kitchens for those unable to 
 work, we arranged to buy large quan- 
 tities of food that was to be sold at cost 
 or less in scattered stores, and with 
 these we worked out a loan institution 
 which was to "loan on labor," and was 
 intended as far as possible to counter- 
 act unemployment. Employers who were 
 unable to continue their men at work 
 were told we would pay their workmen 
 in tickets on our stores, and that we 
 would accept repayment when times 
 were better. This meant sufficient sup- 
 port for a man willing to work, and 
 less wage cost, and credit as well, for 
 employers who had neither money nor 
 business in sight. Where men could not 
 be continued in their regular occupations 
 we endeavored to have them employed 
 on public works, as in Jerusalem on the 
 very necessary canalization of the city, 
 or as in the colonies on the much- 
 needed roads and pavements. 
 
 With Turkey at War 
 
 A worse food scarcity than I saw must 
 have developed in Palestine since No- 
 vember, with Turkey and England at 
 war. For this war means that English 
 and French lines must have stopped call- 
 ing at Palestinian ports, leaving only the 
 Italian line to prevent utter isolation. 
 .\s Palestine has at the present time no 
 railroads connecting it either with the 
 north or south, the situation must be- 
 come more terrible every day. To coun- 
 teract it, various organizations are, I un- 
 derstand, continuing to send relief funds, 
 without which disaster must certainly 
 ensue. It may even be possible, how- 
 ever, that money will be of no value 
 
Palestine and the War 
 
 357 
 
 since It cannot be eaten, and that relief 
 may have to be supplemented by food 
 ships — a situation which is also being 
 carefully considered by the committees. 
 
 The most vital thing that could be 
 done permanently to relieve the situa- 
 tion, vi^ould be to find new markets for 
 the orange crop of Palestine. A half 
 million dollars' worth of fruit will almost 
 surely go to waste unless new markets 
 can be found, and America is almost the 
 only hope. This matter is now under 
 consideration by the committees here 
 and as the oranges are equal to, if not 
 better than, the California fruit, I hope 
 that the shipping obstacles will soon be 
 surmounted; and that if so. Jew and 
 Gentile alike will do their share to help 
 the situation by demanding Jaffa oranges 
 for breakfast. 
 
 Such co-operation will help prevent 
 the collapse of the Palestine movement. 
 
 My trip through the Jewish colonies 
 was the most inspiring part of my expe- 
 dition. It is these colonies that form the 
 nucleus and the hope of the Palestinian 
 movement. It is in them that one sees 
 the possibility of building up a new 
 home for the Jewish race; and in their 
 successful work, the practicability of a 
 return of the Jew to the land. 
 
 There are about fifty colonies scatter- 
 ed all over the country, although the 
 largest has only 2,000 inhabitants. In 
 driving about one can always recognize 
 them by the red roofs of their well- 
 built houses, standing so conspicuously 
 in contrast to the poor construction of 
 the Arab buildings. There is no ques- 
 tion but that the Jewish colonist has had 
 a hard time in Palestine; but what he 
 has done, he has done thoroughly and 
 with an eye. to the future. In fact, in 
 Palestine today, people do not think in 
 years but in generations — eons, if you 
 like — always of the ultimate end which 
 they realize is remote, but for which 
 they are willing to work as long as the 
 
 j^ELOW is shown a picture which 
 puts the charge from the pas- 
 toral to the farming stage of civili- 
 zation quite as graphically. The 
 stream divides Arab pastures from 
 Jewish tilled land. The reeds at the 
 left half conceal the outlines of a 
 modern water plant erected by a 
 Jewish colony. 
 
 breath of life is in them. They are 
 living to make a dream come true. 
 
 The farmer Jews 
 
 The impression I took away from my 
 visit was that in their short life in Pal- 
 estine these colonists are demonstrating 
 three main things — that the Jew, uni- 
 versally supposed to be a corfttitution- 
 ally commercial being, is as well adapt- 
 
 ed to farming as any other man; that 
 Palestine is a land of opportunity; and 
 that it is a happy place for Jews to be. 
 
 It is clear enough when one stops *to 
 think, that the commercial talents and 
 trading instincts of the Jew grew out of 
 the circumstances of ages; and yet the 
 old superstition hangs on. Even Jews 
 themselves enter gingerly upon any agri- 
 cultural enterprise for their race, but 
 the record of the Palestine colonists now 
 stands out as a fact, as an actuality, 
 against this strange, self-conscious 
 dread. The record is so much more re- 
 markable as the successful colonists are 
 of the same generation, and some of 
 them the same men who before their 
 emigration were tailors and storekeep- 
 ers in the Diaspora. There are many in 
 Palestine today who, having come as 
 young men without a sou, are now worth 
 100,000 francs and over, and possess ex- 
 tensive orange groves and vineyards. I 
 remember one man in particular who. 
 told me that he started thirty years ago 
 with a small loan from Baron Roth- 
 schild, that he now owns sixty acres of 
 fine orange groves and is worth 125,000 
 francs, and "would not change with a 
 king." 
 
 But not only have the colonists built 
 this up with their own labor, but they 
 have built up their constitutions as well. 
 It was a revelation to me to see broad- 
 chested men in flannel shirts and riding 
 boots, whose ruddy countenances and 
 strong arms showed no trace of Ghetto 
 and Pale, and made them look for all 
 the world like our western ranchers. 
 .Vo longer is the "wailing wall" typical 
 of the Jews in Palestine, and it is this 
 change which is the best augury for the 
 future. The appearance of the new gen- 
 eration in the colonies bears it out; for 
 they are fine, free-looking young men 
 and women, treading with a springing 
 step, and singing at their work. Com- 
 bining as they do this new vigor with 
 
358 
 
 The Survey, Januarr 2, ]915 
 
 T H K U X 1 T E D 
 STATES CRUISER. 
 \ O RTH CAROLINA, 
 WHICH BROUGHT 
 THE REUEF EXPE- 
 DITION FROM CON- 
 ST A N T INOPI.E TO 
 JAFFA. 
 
 THE START FROM 
 JERUSALEM FOR THE 
 INTERIOR IN THE 
 ONLY MOTOR-CAR IN 
 PALESTINE. AARON 
 .\ARONSOHN .SEATED. 
 
 THE 1) O C K A T 
 TIBERIAS. AS .MR. 
 WERTHEIM LEFT ON 
 THE RETURN TRIP. 
 IN THE FOREGROUND 
 IS SEEN A TYPE OF 
 THE THIRD MEANS 
 OF TRAVEL. 
 
 their innate cleverness, there are big op- 
 portunities open to them and they are 
 beginning to realize them. 
 
 Take, for example, Rishon-Le-Zion, 
 the great wine colony of Palestine, where 
 the famous Carmel wine is produced. I 
 was met by its three leaders, prosperous 
 landowners, whom no one would have 
 guessed to have been, thirty years ago, 
 penniless refugees from Russian perse- 
 cution. I saw vineyards kept like gar- 
 dens and eucalyptus trees that had in less 
 than a generation reclaimed a bare plain 
 and made shaded walks as beautiful as 
 any I have seen in royal parks. With 
 proper pride they showed me through 
 their cellars, which are not only the 
 largest in the' world, but also the best 
 appointed. Imagine seeing in Palestine, 
 cellars that rival if not supersede any in 
 the famous wine-growing districts of 
 France ! 
 
 Idealism of the Soil 
 
 But my chief pleasure lay not so 
 much in seeing the.se marvels as in 
 watching the light in their eyes as they 
 pointed with glowing satisfaction to their 
 modern machinery and new improve- 
 ments — their electric plant, for example, 
 ''the only one in Palestine !" 
 
 And Ihey played a trick on me, too, 
 for they showed me with a pretense at 
 pride an old type engine which I thought 
 pretty good ; Init no, that was too an- 
 tiquated for them, and was now in the 
 scrap-heap, having been replaced across 
 the way by a "real" engine of the most 
 modern type, at which my surprise was 
 too genuine not to please them. 
 
 It is true that hitherto most of the 
 successful Jewish colonies have been en- 
 gaged in fruit farming of one kind or 
 anolher, and that most of them are still 
 so engaged. This is due to the special 
 adaptability of the soil to fruit raising 
 and also to the fact that with the cau- 
 tious tread of beginners the Jews have 
 first entered this less arduous form of 
 agriculture. There is, however, no 
 doubt that with continued physical im- 
 provement and continued scientific ad- 
 vance, they will succeed as well in ce- 
 real growing. This is the more particu- 
 larly true as they have in their midst, 
 devoting his whole life and work to 
 them, the celebrated agronomist, Aaron 
 .\aronsohn, who is known wherever the 
 science of agronomy is studied and whom 
 many universities in vain have endeav- 
 ored to attract. 
 
 An American Leader 
 
 First and foremost, Aaronsohn is a 
 Jew, and no lure of wealth or power 
 could draw him from Palestine and from 
 his one great purpose — to help his breth- 
 ren master the soil. Today he heads the 
 Jewish Agricultural Experiment Station 
 at Haifa — supported, by the way, en- 
 tirely by American Jews, and one of 
 the most advanced in.stitutions of its 
 kind in the world. Daily he is solving 
 
Palestine and the War 
 
 359 
 
 for the Jews some new problem, helping 
 not alone those who are there, but en- 
 couraging those in darkest Russia to 
 come and return to the land. For 
 Aaronsohn is no local figure. Even the 
 veriest layman in farming has heard of 
 ''wild wheat," one of his discoveries 
 which may even revolutionize our own 
 wheat growing industry in America, and 
 make our vast arid belt available for 
 wheat cultivation. From all over the 
 world the advice and learning of this 
 Palestine Jew are sought, and I suspect 
 he is proudest when a letter of inquiry 
 comes from a Russian agricultural 
 station. 
 
 Of course, I do not mean by this ac- 
 count to give the impression that Pales- 
 tine is the old land of "milk and honey," 
 and that a fortune awaits any man who 
 goes there to farm. All the colonists 
 have had a hard time and it is only by 
 the hardest kind of work that success is 
 attained. Yet the reward is there in the 
 the end and facts like this prove it. Fur- 
 thermore, there is a reward that even 
 the poorest and most struggling colonist 
 has attained, and that is a spiritual re- 
 ward which is apparent to anyone. They 
 are happy. 
 
 I remember an old colonist — the oldest 
 in Rishon — standing in front of his mod- 
 est cottage, his great grey beard telling 
 of at least eighty years, who reminded 
 me gravely as follows : "You know, we 
 did not come here to make money — 
 Heaven knows I have not made much ; 
 but we came to be with our brothers, we 
 came because this is the land of our an- 
 cestors, and this is the place we belong." 
 The spirit of living for a cause is rife 
 among them, and any man who works 
 with his hands for himself as well as 
 for a great ideal, is bound to be happy. 
 
 Furthermore, they are living a new life 
 of liberty, untrammeled by the old re- 
 strictions or prejudices. They can be 
 Jews ; they can glory in their faith and 
 their race and their traditions; and even 
 if they have a hard time, a great weight 
 is lifted, from their hearts in being Jews 
 and living Judaism without let or 
 hindrance. 
 
 In one colony I saw at an engagement 
 party the young men and women of the 
 settlement dancing the merry swinging 
 dance which they have adopted as their 
 national dance, to the air of their na- 
 tional hymn which each one sang 
 proudly, almost defiantly. In another 
 colony, I was passing one Friday even- 
 ing a long, low structure that looked 
 like a barn, and saw sitting on the 
 benches in front of it a number of bent 
 old men with prayer books in their 
 hands, talking earnestly in groups. In 
 answer to my eager question, I was told 
 that this was a temporary synagogue, 
 and that the old men were recent refu- 
 gees from Russian pogroms discussing 
 the Talmud in the twilight hour before 
 the Sabbath worship. I thought of their 
 hunted life in the Pale and the dififer- 
 
 THEEE OF THE 
 LEADING COLONISTS 
 AT EISHON-LE-ZION 
 
 ONE OF THE MOST 
 
 PROSPEROllS OF THE 
 ZIONIST SETTLE- 
 MENTS. 
 
 GYMNASIUM IN 
 TEL-A-VIR — A COM- 
 B I N A T ION TOWN 
 HALL AND RECREA- 
 TION CENTER IN THE 
 ONLY TRULY JEWISH 
 CITY IN THE WORLD. 
 THE COMMUNITY IS 
 LOCATED NEAR 
 JAFFA. 
 
 TE.MPORARY SYNA- 
 GOGUE OF A GROUP 
 OF RUSSIAN SET- 
 TLERS DRIVEN TO 
 PALESTINE BY THE 
 PROGROMS. (photo- 
 graph TAKEN JUST 
 
 before evening 
 worship). 
 
360 
 
 ence it must have meant to them — and 
 became a Zionist on the spot. 
 
 That does not mean that I became an 
 advocate of a Jewish state in Palestine, 
 or that I wished to become a party to a 
 movement that would drive all Jews, 
 wherever living in the world, into Pales- 
 tine as into a corral — which many lay- 
 men seriously think is the object of 
 Zionism. It means merely that I sym- 
 pathized, as almost anyone would, with 
 the aims of those who are trying to es- 
 tablish in Palestine a center of refuge 
 for oppressed or restricted Jews of all 
 countries, a center that will preserve 
 Judaism and will permanently radiate 
 Jewish life and culture. It is a'thousand 
 pities that this simple and noble aim has 
 become an "ism," developing pro's and 
 anti's on a subject about which, among 
 either Jew or Gentile, it seems to me 
 that little difference of opinion can ex- 
 ist. If all Jews realized that this is 
 Zionism on the ground, I hardly think 
 that there would be so much theoretical 
 and vexed discussion of the matter. 
 
 In organizing in Palestine a well-knit 
 Jewish community the Zionists first en- 
 countered the difficulty of language. In 
 the earlier part of this account I told 
 how the Jewish population in Palestine 
 had come from all countries, how the 
 Sephardim spoke Spanish, and how the 
 Ashkenazim spoke the language of their 
 origin, whether they had been Polish, 
 German or Russian. I used the past 
 tense advisedly for they speak these lan- 
 guages no longer. Nor do they speak 
 Yiddish, a language not far removed 
 from a jargon, which is spoken differ- 
 ently in different countries. 
 
 Thirty years ago there arose in Pales- 
 tine a man and a scholar who saw that 
 there could be no real community life 
 or community influence without a com- 
 
 mon language. He spoke of / but was 
 not heard, he cried it fronj/the house- 
 tops in Jerusalem, but still Aas doubted. 
 He is a very small man /n stature, but 
 he is big in purpose. an incredulous 
 community he announc/d that he would 
 marry only such a woaflan as would agree 
 that their children Should speak a new 
 language and notfaffng but a new lan- 
 guage, from the sfradle. He found such 
 a woman and g^dually won over other 
 adherents. Pejple laughed, yet in joint 
 meetings on /uestions of general inter- 
 est the ne«r language was tried and 
 found mostf jmni'iiiiiiny since in no other 
 way could people talk fluently to each 
 other. In public announcements, in in- 
 tercommunication of all kinds, it helped 
 immensely, so that slowly but surely 
 people came to be his enthusiastic fol- 
 lowers. The man's name is Ben-Jehuda, 
 and the language, Hebrew. 
 
 It is the same language as that of the 
 Old Testament, brought up to date and 
 fitted to express the changed life of the 
 day. Today throughout Palestine, in the 
 Jewish colonies and in Jewish communi- 
 ties of the- cities as well, Hebrew is 
 talked as a living language. Not only 
 Jews talk it, but many Arabs as well 
 have found it to their interest to learn it. 
 This is truly a monument of which the 
 Zionists may be proud,— a remarkable 
 achievement when one considers that in 
 the short space of thirty years a lan- 
 guage which, for the purposes of ordin- 
 ary conversation had been dead for al- 
 most 2,000 years, ' has been completely 
 revived. With scientific precision a body 
 of scholars, Ben-Jehuda at their head, 
 have filled up the gap so well that today 
 lectures are given in Hebrew even on 
 technical and scientific subjects. 
 
 When I was in Jerusalem I visited the. 
 workshop of this same Ben-Jehuda, who 
 
 The Survey, January 2, 19] 5 
 
 is still working on his ten-volume dic- 
 tionary of modern Hebrew. Six big 
 volumes have been completed and pub- 
 lished ; and so far, six wealthy Zionists 
 have each had the privilege of defray- 
 mg the cost of one volume. It seemed 
 to me that this little nervous man was 
 working too hard to finish his great work 
 before time should force him to stop. 
 When I entered, he showed me almost 
 feverishly how he worked. 
 
 In a big bare room lined on one side 
 with books from floor to ceiling stood 
 a long table, groaning under fifty or 
 more tremendous tomes, all open and 
 heavily book-marked. In the corner 
 stood a cabinet in which I judged, from 
 the eager way he hurried me to it, was 
 his particular treasure. It was filled 
 with thousands of little cards, all care- 
 fully arranged in packages under the 
 mam heading of letters. Although he 
 talked too fast for me to understand 
 thoroughly, I gathered that each pack- 
 age represented one word, and each card 
 a quotation, showing the manner in 
 which that word had been employed in 
 the Bible and by all other Hebrew au- 
 thors as well, so that he might have 
 plenty of authority for his interpreta- 
 tions. 
 
 I wondered no longer that this stu- 
 pendous work was not finished, or that 
 he was ^ laboring with restless haste. 
 About him, too, were young men with 
 the same eager expression — fine, dark, 
 Jewish types with wavy black hair, and 
 eyes glistening with their great purpose, 
 like disciples about a modern prophet. 
 
 I shall never forget, when I asked 
 Ben-Jehuda what would happen to his 
 work if he should die, how he answered 
 me, simply, yet greatly, "I must live." 
 I shall never forget it, because it trans- 
 lated the spirit of modern Palestine. 
 
 //3 ^ 
 
 THE OLDEST COLONIST AT 
 RISHON-IE-ZIOM