A visit to Palestine has convinced Bronislaw Huberman, the famed violinist, that Palestine is a “paradise on earth” and that it represents a “new and better Europe”
In an interview here shortly after his return from a successful concert tour of the Holy Land, the noted musician spoke in glowing terms of the country and its people.
“I have just come from a country that may truly be considered a paradise on earth,” Huberman declared. “I am a keen Pan-European,” he went on. “I was never enthusiastic about the idea of the most European nation in the world –the Jews–going to live in an Asiatic country. But what I have seen in Palestine has made me enthusiastic. Nowhere else can such idealism, such enthusiasm, be seen. True, there are individual idealists to be found everywhere. But mass idealism, collective idealism, as it exists in Palestine, cannot be found in any country of the world. That is one of the reasons why I no longer see any incompatibility between my Pan-Europeanism and Palestine.”
A EUROPEAN OASIS
“What I saw in Palestine I regard as a new and better Europe,” he declared. “There is an idealism that will perhaps also pull its weight in getting Europe out of the chaos in which it finds it-self. And if ever a Pan-Europe is achieved, it will be the wealthier for another federative state–Palestine. Today Palestine is the one really European oasis in Asia.
“I gave twelve concerts in Palestine which were attended by a total of 18,000 people, and each was sold out. If we include the thousands that could not gain admission, this means that there is in Palestine a concert-going public of some 30,000–an enormous number, when one considers that the total Jewish population of the country is only a quarter of a million, men, women and children. This is a proportion of five or ten times higher than in any other country I know of. It speaks volumes for the cultural life of the Yishuv, as do a number of other factors.
“The library of the Hebrew University, for example, which was founded only ten years ago, is now the largest library of the white race in Asia or Africa. And the cultural ideals even among the so-called peasants are such as can only be found among the upper ten thousand elsewhere. I feel that Palestine is the first country at last emerging from the ‘class’ culture of Europe, and is creating a culture embracing the whole people.
OWE DEBT TO ENGLAND
“I do not criticize the fact that reproaches are made against the Mandatory Power,” Huberman proceeded. “I can understand that some sections of the population feel that they must express their dissatisfaction. But we Jews should never forget that it was England that after two thousand years of exile pronounced the liberating words, ‘Jewish National Home’, or forget the expressions of friendship and sympathy that were heard in the British Parliament in connection with the Nazi persecution of the Jews. We should value this friendship, and overcome our differences.”
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