The Jew in countries outside of Israel lives in two sometimes conflicting worlds and is a split personality, Premier David Ben Gurion said today in an address to some 1,500 youths from 24 Western countries at a rally of students from various summer institutes.
Only in Israel, the Premier declared, can there be a Jewish life of their own production and their own creation. Speaking in English, Mr. Ben Gurion told his audience to weigh carefully whether they wished to give up their homes, comforts and many facilities for difficulties, danger, tribulations, uncertain security and the dear price which must be paid for deeds, for life in Israel.
One thing, however, is unobtainable in Galuth, Mr. Ben Gurion insisted, and that is national Jewish dignity. The Premier received a tremendous ovation when he concluded his speech of welcome.
Eliahu Dobkin, head of the Jewish Agency’s youth and pioneering department, welcomed the 1,205 youths from abroad and the several hundred visitors and Hebrew University students. About half of the youths were from English-speaking lands, some 400 from French-speaking countries and 300 from Spanish-speaking states. Of the total, 562 were planning to spend at least a year in Israel.
330 YOUTHS FROM ABROAD TO REMAIN FOR SERVICE IN ISRAEL
Mr. Dobkin gave a special welcome to some 330 youths who had come to give Israel a period of service, in response to an appeal proclaimed at the World Zionist Congress three months ago. Ninety of them will stay for two years. He singled out for citation participants from the United States.
Mr. Dobkin disclosed that of 460 new settlements established since Israel’s independence, 30 are inhabited by Western youth immigrants whose contributions he termed a great asset for Israel. He deplored the fact that only 21,000 of some 800,000 immigrants had come from those countries where 75 percent of the Jews were concentrated.
The Jewish Agency leader further revealed that 18 percent of the young men and women who had participated in seminars in Israel in the last three years had returned to settle in Israel. He expressed the hope that seminar participants who returned home this year would convey to Jews in their countries that Israel was not only a haven for the persecuted, but a home for every Jew seeking a full content to life and where he is fully the master of his fate.
Dr. Joseph Burg, Minister of Posts, told the young people to resolve their doubts before coming to Israel because “Israel is no place for doubters.”
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.
