Connecticut Pushes Relief Aid

Connecticut’s drive for funds for the settlement of German Jewish refugees will be launchednext; Sunday, Feb. 11, at a state-wide conference of Connecticut Jewish leladers at the Hotel Taft in New Haven, the American Palestine Campaign announced yesterday. Representatives of communal, fraternal and religious groups in the state will participate.

Principal speakers at the conference will be Louis Lipsky, national chairman of the American Palestine Campaign, and Pierre van Paasen, jouralist and lecturre, who will report on his recent visit to Germany.

“People stare at me so when they learn that I was born in Palestine. I don’t know what they expect a native Palestinian to look like, but we’re human and we don’t have horns growing out of ttheir heads.”

Ziona Carmi isn’t awed with the begness, the tempestuousness of New York, even though she arrived in the city only two weeks ago and had never before been ouside of Palestine. Even the subway of which she had heard many strange tales doesn’t impress her. Her chief concern and interest is to study hard and bring as much information as possible back to Palestine. For some years she saved and stinted to make this trip possible. Yesterday she began her cours at Gugegenheim Foundation.

Guggenheim Dental Clinic has given Miss Carmi a scholarship for a year’s study of dental hygiene. She plans to instruct in the subject when she returns to Palestine. Miss Carmi was dental hygienist at the Wachtel Clinic, one of the departments of the Straus Health Centre in Jerusalem for two years. While in New York, she is staying with Dr. Henry I. Wachtel, founder of the clinic in Jerusalem.

Miss Carnic speaks a fluent English. Her voice is soft and low pitched. There is a calm and sim-plocity about her. She uses no cosmetics and wonders at the extravagance of some American women.

Although the woman in Palestine must experience many headships-the amount of work and the lack of comfort-she said that no amount of comfort could persuade her to live anywhere but in her native land. Miss Carmi doesn’t believe, and she is decided in the expressions, of her opinions, that anyone who is not completely devoted to the building of a Homeland should attempt to live in Palestine.

REGARDS VISIT AS MISSION

“I am here on a mission for my country,” she said. “I want to devote my time to hard study and bring Amerca’s advanced methods of dental hygiene back to Palestine. Here dental Prophylaxis is the common thing. In Palestine it is only in its beginnings. The School children, particularly, need dental care. Hadassah, through the Clara Wachtel Dental Clenic in Jerusalem is doing a pioneer work in this field, and when I return, I hope to teach others what I will have learned here.”

Miss Carmi speaks English. Hebrew and Arabic. She was educated in the Haifa high school and later studied in the government training school for nurses. After graduation she took the public health course given by Jadassah. She is 25 and married to a Palestinian worker.

Her parents came to Palestine twenty-six years ago from Russia. They are both teachers. They eanted their first child to be born in Palestine-their first chid was Ziona. Miss Carmi is proud of her heritage. She speaks of herself as an Oriental; and when she does there is a gleam of pride in her dark eyes. She has three sisters. Two of them, twins of fifteen years of age, are studying at the agricultural school at Ben Shemen.

The director of the Haifa elemantary school of the Jewish Agency, where modern pedagogical methods of coordinating work and play are applied, is Miss Carmi’s father. Her mother, also a teacher, has worked continuously since the family came to Palestine. “Mother is a woman of fifty but not only does she teach all day, she finds time for all kinds of social and philanthropic work.”

“Above everything else,” said Miss Carmi, “I hope you will mention that I am impressed by the kindness and hospitality of Americans. Everyone has tried to make things easier for me and I am sincerely grateful.”