The American Jewish world. [volume], April 28, 1922, Image 3

About The American Jewish world. [volume] (Minneapolis ;) 1915-current

Image provided by: Minnesota Historical Society; Saint Paul, MN

                
We have been fortunate in secur
ing for our readers, through the
Jewish Correspondence Bureau, copies
of the articles published in the "Labor
Leader," by Mr. J. Ramsay Macdon
ald, member of the British Parliament,
on his return from Palestine. Ar
rangements for their publication have
been made with both Mr. Macdonald
and the "Labor Leader." The second
of this series will follow shortly.—
Editor.
A reputation is a risky posses
sion and a most exacting one. If
every seeker after curiosities
does not find what reputation
has advertised, its possessor,
whether man or thing, is at once
held to be a fraud, and written
down as something to be avoided.
I have a deep sympathy for ev
erything that has a reputation,
and that is perhaps why I am so
rarely disappointed. I have met
many people who have been to
Palestine, who have gone from
Beersheba to Dan and from
Jaffa to Jericho, and who have
told me that "it was not worth
the money," that glory (if ever
it had glory) has departed from
it, that I should be disappointed
with it, and so on, and so on.
I have now been there and
am back in the midst of the great
miracle of London, happy that I
can still enjoy myself in many
places and that I am still young
enough to welcome heroes and
join in the delights that the gen
erations have found in the scenes
that my heroes saw and the
places where they dwelt.
To the eyes of Western Chris
tendom, as well as to those of
the Jewish and the Moslem
worlds, Palestine is the Holy
Land, and a glamor of religious
romance enfolds it like a sunset
that never changes into a garish
light, nor sinks into a featureless
darkness. One has no longer to
approach it from the rough and
tumbling sea which made the
voyage from Alexandria to Jaf
fa a journey of extreme discom
fort, with a landing place that
might be unapproachable wrhen
one got to it. The armies that
marched from Egypt to the con
quest of Palestine kept touch
with their base by water pipes
and railway lines, and so, the
Egyptian Railway Time Tables
have an appendix showing that
if you leave Cairo of an evening
you can have late breakfast next
morning in Jerusalem. It is al
ready dark when vou leave, and
when you reach the canal-cross­
ing at Kantara, lines of electric
lights dim the stars and throw
sheaves of bright yellow beams
to dance on the dark blue waters
of the canal. You leave your
train (because the French made
trouble about a bridge which
they tolerated during the war),
cross by a floating bridge of
boats, and in the midst of a
sandy desolation on the other
side, you find a Parisian train
with restaurant and sleeping car
riages waiting to receive you.
Thus you cross the desert of roll
ing sands, barren as the sea
shore, with here and there an
oasis of palm trees by which the
Bedouin plows with camels and
dwells in his flat-topped mud
huts thus you cross the land of
the Philistines, which I found in
the morning blushing like a
bridge under almond blossoms,
and came to the villages of the
tribe of Dan.
At the junction of Lud, a city
of the Philistines and the place
where Peter cured a man of the
palsy, now a camp of our army
of occupation, a deputation met
me. They belonged to that ad
vance guard of Israelites return
ing to Zion, and they had come
from many lands seeking not only
the home of their fathers, but a
dwelling place which they are tb
build upon foundations of com
munal idealism. They were a
happy, fraternal company of men
and women, brown of face and
sturdy of limb,, everyone engaged
in hard manual labor, making
roads and homes, and planting
the waste places with groves, and
tilling the land for harvests. In
a car they brought me to Jaffa,
the great port of entry for the
Jewish homeseekers and the
headquarters of their activities.
In Jaffa hope and tradition
mingle and sometimes create
strife like the meeting of conflict
ing currents. I looked with a
happy eye upon the old city built
upon a hill, which offers a precipi
tous front to the swelling waters
of the Mediterranean. What a
story was its beginning in myth
and entering majestically into
the morning light of history.
Hither the cedars came from Le
banon for the Temple thither
Jonah went on board ship here
Peter raised Dorcas to life, and
here is shown the house of Simon
the tanner this was ground
where the Jews under the Macca­
THE AMERICAN JEWISH WORLD
A Weekly Journal of Modern Jewish Life and Labor*
VOL. St. Paul and Minneapolis—Friday, April 28, 1922. No. 34
A Socialist In Palestine
By J. RAMSAY MACDONALD, M. P.
bees, and the Gentiles under the
Crusading leaders, fought and
won fame. Today the Moslem is
in possession, and he looks with
apprehension upon the extending
streets of the new town of Jew
ish settlers to the north, and is
ready to listen to his leaders who
wish for strife and to engage in
riots and pogroms.
But the Jewish town spreads
on the sands. The foundations of
a new Garden City have been
laid in the middle of the sand
dunes a big factory is at work
turning out stones every day suf
ficiently to build a house. There
are labor headquarters, trade
unions, co-operative printing
works, carpentry shops, boot
and shoe works. Whatever labor
can do by its own organization is
done without the intervention of
the capitalist, and if the sand on
the one hand and the Moslem on
the other give trouble, the heart
of the Zionist is buoyant. He has
left a bad old world behind him
he is to be the creator of a new
one.
Wherever I have gone in Pal
estine I have found that its physi
cal geography curiously blends
with its traditions. Between Jaffa
and Jerusalem, is roughly, a broad
plain and a broad area of broken
hills—the one appropriate nes
tling place of poetry, of pleasant
and peaceful cultivation, of gen
erous ease the other of untamed
men, of warriors and robbers of
high romance. The one is the
Plain of Sharon, the other, the
western part of the Hills of Judea.
But as a counter action to the nat
ural aspects of the plain, it was
also a highway for armies as well
as caravans, and when the Tribe
of Dan was settled on Sharon, it
had to defend the approach to
Jerusalem from the west. "Dan
shall be a serpent, by the way, an
adder in the path that biteth the
horses' heels so that the rider
shall fall backward." The tribe
of Benjamin held the hills, and
of it, it has been said: "Benja
min shall ravish as a wolf in the
morning he shall devour the prey,
and at night he shall divide the
spoil."
On the Jaffa edge of the Plain
of Sharon is a finely equipped
agricultural college founded by a
Baron Rothschild to promote
Jewish settlement. I found a good
crowd of students ready to greet
me, but evening was closing in
1
and I had to go on. The Land of
Benjamin was glowing under the
setting sun, and darkness was
spreading over Sharon. The hills
are entered by a narrow defile,
known as the "Door of the Val
ley," and up and down this have
passed from time immemorial
armies in triumph and in rout. It
was dark when I got so far, but
the moon was rising. A house of
dirty white stands there for rest
and refreshment, but it seemed
too forbidding to enter, though a
boy came out and offered us cof
fee. I crossed the long, winding
hill road under a moon which
rode turbulently through clouds
and after about a couple of hours
and with a feeling that the jour
ney had ended in an anticlimax,
I passed into yellowish streets
dimly lit as though ashamed of
themselves after the magnificent
road, past big ugly buildings that
were obviously institutions and
might have been workhouse or
lunatic asylums. I had reached
Jerusalem.
HAVE YOU RELATIVES IN
RUSSIA?
Send Them Pood.
For $10 the joint distribution
committee will transmit through
the American Relief Administra
tion to your starving relatives in
Russia, a package of nutritious
kosher food weighing 117 pounds.
You may send $10 with your
address and the address of your
relative in Russia to the Joint
Distribution o i 11 ee, 64
Water Street, New York City,
and your food package will at
once be delivered.
Do not forget your starving"
relatives in Russia. Send them
food.
TO OUR ORTHODOX
RABBIS
New York, April 26, 1922.
The American Jewish World,
Minneapolis, Minn.
Please advertise at once,
"Executive of Agudath Harabo
nim begs herewith to notify all
the Rabbis members of our or
ganization that our yearly con
vention will be held at Broadway
Central Hotel, New York City, on
the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th of
May. All our members are ex
pected to be present."
—Union Orthodox Rabbis of
United States and Canada.