(J. T. A. Mail Service)
The Organization of American Legionaries in Palestine submittee a memerandum to the American delegates at the Congress. calling attention to their sufferings in Palestine and demanding that they should take action at the Congress on their behalf.
“It is ten years.” the memerandum says since the first volunteers of the Jewish American Legions commenced their work for the conquering and building up of our country, and over nine years since they have been fighting on the outposts of the front. They fought against the military enemy in Jericho and Transjordan. They defended Tel Hai under Trumpeldor. They protected he people in the pogroms in Jerusalem and Jafia and they have been working as pioneers in the most dangerous places of Palestine. Most of them have been reduced to vagabondage, wandering about from place to place, from employer to employer.
“When we were marching in the streets of New York before we emburked for Palestine to fight, solemn promises were made to us by enthusiastic speakers, but nothing has been fulfilled. Is it right that for nine years we have been left without the sympathy of any of the Zionist institutions, with nothing at all doneto help us to take root in our country, for which we came to pay with our blood? It is a shame and a dishonor to the Zionist movement that not even one settlement has been built up in memory of the Jewish youth of America who volunteered for Palestine.
“We call upon you American delegates to press at the Congress for the establishment of a settlement in Palestine on which to settle all the American Legionaries who remained in Palestine after demobilization. We are only a few who have remained behind, when the thousands of comrades who served with us in the Legion left the country heartbroken. We hope that some compensation will be made for the evil done to those of our comrades who have had to return to America, and that they too should be enabled to settle on the land which was their desire,” the memorandum concludes.
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.
