(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
A scholarship fund at the Hebrew University will be created by the British Jews’ War Memorial Council.
The Council announced that it will raise a sum of £4,000 for this purpose.
SIR ALFRED DAVIES REPLIES TO DR. FOSDICK’S CRITICISM
Sir Alfred Davies, British educator who for twenty years was head of the Administration of Education in Wales, defended Zionism in answer to Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of the Park Avenue Baptist Church, who said that Zionism will be a failure unless its leaders in Palestine turn away from extreme nationalism.
Sir Alfred’s reply was made at the annual meeting of the New York chapter of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, at the Hotel Chalfonte, Wednesday. Sir Alfred spent several months in the Near East recently.
“I should like to know if Dr. Fosdick includes the Valley of Esdraelon, where malaria has been stamped out; the marvelous orange groves near Jaffa, and the fertile lands in Galilee in his description of Palestine as a more unpromising looking place for modern agriculture than can be imagined.
“While Palestine cannot hope to be immune from political commotion any more than any other country can and although these tendencies are deplorable, I do not share the view in regard to the unlikelihood of agriculture being developed in Palestine unless the Zionist colonies become self-supporting. The Commission which is soon to go to Palestine to examine the economic and agricultural conditions will surely throw more light on that phase of Palestine’s development than either Dr. Fosdick or I can.”
Sir Alfred denied that there are racial differences between the Jews and the Arabs. The fact that some leading Arabs are learning Hebrew, he said, is significant of a friendly relation between the two peoples.
“Last month was the first time since the Balfour Declaration that the Arabs showed a willingness toward promoting municipal government in Jerusalem. Both Jews and Arabs were elected to the council. This is a most hopeful sign. There have been no Arab outbreaks since 1922. Then, too, the last British soldier has left Palestine and and order today is kept by the Palestinian police. Finally, Palestine is no longer a charge on the British Exchequer; it is self-supporting.
“On what evidence does Dr. Fosdick base his statement that many Arabs are prepared for violence. There are men in all countries prepared for violence. The extremists in Palestine are not representative of public opinion in Palestine any more than highway robbers express the condition of affairs in the United States. No one who knows Palestine would endorse the statement that the Arab is on the eve of revolt. The fact is that the Arab is coming better to realize what Zionism means to his own race. If this were not true. it is strange, very strange, that the fear of the Arabs finds no expression in action on the part of the Mandatory Government. Great Britain does not withdraw soldiers when they are required.
“Dr. Fosdick mentioned the fact that there are Jewish settlers in Palestine taking up agriculture for the first time in their lives. What of it? So also did many men take up soldiering for the first time in their lives and many women relief work during the late war. I have yet to learn that the word ‘failure’ is written across their efforts.
“This can be said of those that are going to Palestine, that they are fired by a great and noble ideal, that they prefer comparative poverty in Palestine to the flesh pots and riches in modern Babylons, like London, New York or other world capitals. The back to the land movement is not unique in Palestine; it is also true of Russia, for instance. It is getting back to a more rational mode of living,” he said.
The Zionists, he said, are engaged in a noble, holy work.
Mrs. Israel Goldstein. president of the New York chapter, was reelected for another term. Other officers elected were Mrs. Jacob Schwarz and Mrs. Mathilda Radin, vice-presidents; Mrs. Eva Marcus, corresponding secretary; Mrs. Joseph Newman, recording secretary, and Mrs. Harry Platoff, treasurer.
Aaron Sapiro will make his first address in New York since his $1,000,000 libel suit against Ford was declared a mistrial when he will occupy the pulpit tonight in Union Temple, Eastern Parkway and Prospect Park Plaza, Brooklyn.
Mr. Sapiro will talk under the auspices of the Men’s Club of Union Temple. The subject of his address will be, “The Secret of Cooperation.”
The lecture will follow the regular services at the temple beginning at 8:15 p.m. A reception to Mr. Sapiro in the ballroom of the Temple will be given after the address. Aaron L. Jacoby, president of the Men’s Club of Union Temple, will preside at the reception.
Jewish Book Week was observed at Temple Emanu-El. Los Angeles, of which Dr. Herman Lissaner is Rabbi, during the week of May 20th-26th. It was inaugurated by a special service on Friday evening, with a review of the Jewish Publication Society’s “History of the Jews” recently issued. An exhibit of Jewish books and pictures was held in the library of the Temple.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
