The American Hadassah has sent $1,862,860 to Palestine during the past year for war emergency, hospitalization, public health, schools, child welfare, youth, refugee and land reclamation work, it was reported today by Mrs. Samuel J. Rosensohn, national treasurer, at the first business session of the 27th annual convention of Hadassah, meeting here.
Of the 30 shipments of food, medical instruments and drugs sent by Hadassah to Palestine during the last twelve months, only two did not arrive “because of enemy action,” it was revealed by Mrs. Samuel W. Halprin, Chairman of the Palestine Committee. The other shipments, in convoys protected all the way by British destroyers, reached Palestine unarmed.
Mrs. Tamar de Sola Pool, national President of the organization, stressed that Palestine was aiding the British as “an arsenal of democracy in the Middle East.” She reported that 200 new industries employing thousands of Jewish workers had been established and that they were manufacturing cloth, wire, precision instruments, canned goods and other war necessities.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT FOREST PROJECT LAUNCHED
The launching of an Eleanor Roosevelt Forest Project in Palestine by the Hadassah in honor of the President’s wife was announced at today’s session of the convention. A letter was read from Mrs. Roosevelt stating that she was greatly touched by the fact that the project will carry her name. “I have long been interested in the work done in Palestine and have always had a great sense of satisfaction when I have heard of the progress made. I am gratified to find that that despite the precarious position of these pioneers, which is recognized by so many of us, the building program has been carried forward without interruption,” Mrs. Roosevelt wrote. Another forest, named in honor of Senator Robert Wagner of New York, chairman of the American Palestine Committee, will also be planted in Palestine, it was disclosed at the convention.
A resolution accepted today by the convention asked for the formation of a Jewish force in the Near East to serve on a basis of equality with the military forces of Great Britain and the other Allies. Another resolution opposed the White Paper a “last relic of a disastrous, now repudiated, policy of appeasement.”
Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the Administrative Committee of the World Jewish Congress, addressing the convention said that he feared that of the ten million Jews living in Europe before the war only about six or seven million will survive and that the Jews may prove to be the greatest sufferers in the conflict. “Today we demand a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine with full sovreignty in order to take care of the post-war Jewish problem,” Dr. Goldmann emphasized.
Mrs. Edward Jacobs, Hadassah leader and the only woman member of the Executive of the Jewish Agency, made an appeal to American Jews to participate concretely in Palestine problems and if necessary to send representatives there to get first hand information. She said “old slogans must be discarded. We have discovered that nationalism can also have odious connotations, that small nations cannot enjoy economic determinism, that limitations are put upon culture and language. We must consider Zionism against the background of this new ferment.”
Other speakers included Rabbi Israel Goldstein, Emanuel Naumenn, Prof. Charles K. Webster and Miss Julliet N. Benjamin.
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