“There can be no Jewish National Home without men and land. Restriction of immigration on political grounds or legislation which would deprive us of the possibility of acquiring the necessary land for our settlements would mean virtual cancellation of the policy of the Mandate.”
This statement was made by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency, in a letter which accompanies the memorandum on the development of the Jewish National Home submitted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine to the League of Nations.
Dr. Weizmann also pointed out that “while we are glad to note the admission in the report of the Palestine Inquiry Commission that our work in Palestine by its very nature benefits the Arab population and while it is our intention that it should do so, our national home is an aim in itself and is acknowledged as such by the Mandate.
“Were our right to enter Palestine made dependent on the advantages derived by a majority of its present inhabitants, our position there would in no way differ from that of immigrants entering an alien country, and the articles of the Mandate which set up a Jewish National Home in Palestine would become meaningless. The same would be the effect of any discrimination against us, debarring us from the soil of Palestine; and the assertion, not borne out by facts, that there is no land available for Jewish colonization in Palestine, is but an indirect attempt to defeat the policy of the Jewish National Home.”
5,249 JEWISH IMMIGRANTS IN 1929
A total of 5,249 Jews were registered as immigrants to Palestine during 1929, the report of the Jewish Agency states. A total of 1,746 Jewish departures was registered during the same period. In July 1929 the Jewish population was estimated by the government 154,330 as compared with 149,554 in 1928 and with 83,794 at the time of the census in 1922. The natural increase in Jewish population in 1929 was 3,531, the result of 5,307 births and 1,776 deaths.
169,000 JEWS IN COUNTRY
According to the records of the Jewish Agency the Jews in Palestine at the end of December 1929 numbered approximately 169,000 or 20 percent of the settled population and 18 percent of the total population (including bedouins). Of the immigrants 2,543 were men. 1.937 women and 859 children.
The countries of origin were as follows: 253 from the United States, 1,966 from Poland, 366 from Russia, 355 from Roumania and the balance among other countries.
14,000 HALUTZIM IN EUROPE
The total number of haluztim (pioneers) in Europe are 14,000, of whom 4,000 were in 1929 under training.
In the course of 1929 the whole of the Jewish unemployed in Palestine were absorbed, as well as the new immigrants, according to the Jewish Agency’s report. At the end of 1928 the Jewish unemployed in Palestine numbered 1,393 as compared with 6,361 at the end of 1927. By December 1929 the number was reduced to 334.
LESS JEWS ON GOVERNMENT WORKS
The number of Jews employed in government and municipal public works during 1929 shows a marked decrease as compared with the number thus employed in the previous year. Through its central and local labor exchanges the General Federation of Jewish Labor which has a membership of 25,000 was able to regulate the supply of Jewish labor in Palestine. Further openings for Jewish labor are expected in connection with the Palestine Potash Company’s undertakings and the extension of the Haifa harbor works. An experiment undertaken by the harbor authorities in the employment of Jewish workers on quarrying at piece rates has proved successful; while the workers can earn a living wage, the cost of stone per cubic metre is kept well below that of stone quarried by Arab labor working for a much lower daily wage.
LABOR MARKET APPROVED
The agency’s report also notes a steady improvement in the condition of the labor market which has led the Palestine government to admit substantial numbers of immigrants under the labor schedule, the three last six-monthly schedules being 600 for October 1928 to March 1929, 2,400 for April 1929 to September 1929 and 2,300 (plus a supplementary schedule of 950) for October 1929 to March 1930.
$5,078,345 IN LAND PURCHASES
Jewish land purchases in 1929, according to the agency’s figures were 98,720 metric dunams (1 metric dunam is 0.25 acres) valued at $5,078,345, while sales of land by Jews amounted to 34,204 dunams valued at $3,366,405. In the financial year ending September 30, 1929 the Jewish National Fund increased its land holdings by 64,777 dunams which included purchases of 33,500 dunams at Wadi Hawareth and 21,000 acres in the Haifa-Acre Plain.
At the end of 1929 the total holdings of the Jewish National Fund amounted to 284,609 dunams of which 282,993 dunams were in rural, and 1,616 dunams in urban lands. The total area of land in Jewish hands is estimated at approximately 1,200,000 dunams. Of the Jewish National Fund’s holdings 144,828 dunams are worked by farmers, 4,058 dunams are under forest, 36,629 dunams are unfit for cultivation and the remaining 101,478 dunams are at present unoccupied or being prepared for cultivation.
8 SETTLEMENTS SELF-SUPPORTING
The Jewish Agency also reports that eight of the settlements are now self supporting; these are Nahalal, Kfar Yeheskiel, Ben Shemen, Ataroth Dagania, Gan Schmuel, Kiryath Anavim and Ginegar. The August riots caused a serious set back in the work of consolidating, seven of the agricultural colonies having been completely or partially destroyed. The direct financial loss to the Jewish Agency in respect to the damage done to its agricultural colonies totalled $930,000.
Despite these difficulties the Jewish Agency reports substantial progress in agriculture in 1929, the number of Jewish orange groves, 30,000 of which have existed in 1928, having increased by nearly 50 per cent and the total area devoted to orange cultivation approaching 45,000 dunams. The Palestine Plantations Co., was founded in 1929 with a capital of one and a half million dollars, and within six years it is to be increased to five million dollars, the company proposing to bring under cultivation an average of 1,000 dunams a year.
Referring to the work of the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (Pica) the Agency’s report says that in 1929 its activities included the settlement of 30 families in the new colony of Pardessanna, the drainage reclaimation of several hundred dunams of swamp and the irrigation of over 500 dunams of land in the Jordan Valley as well as the construction of groves.
$467,355 FOR AGRICULTURAL COLONIZATION
For the year ending September 30. 1929, the Palestine Foundation Fund (Keren Hayesod) provided $467,355 for agrcultiural colonization. During the same period the Jewish National Fund invested $995,680 in the purchase and amelioration of land and in afforestation. Loans to the amount of $724,000 were granted in the financial year ending August 31, 1929, by the Central Bank of Cooperative Credit Institutions, which is connected with the Palestine Economic Corporation of New York, and the London Economic Board for Palestine. During 1929 the Palestine Corporation Ltd., granted long term agricultural loans totaling $150,000 and the Palestine Mortgage and Credit aBnk allocated $150,000 for mortgage loans to promote the building of workers’ houses in the plantation colonies.
TARIFF CHANGES IMPROVE INDUSTRY
Important amendments to the Palestine Customs Tariff in 1929 granted further exemptions from duty on imported raw materials and industrial machinery which aided in the creation of more favorable conditions for Palestinian industry. Despite the disturbances and the Arab boycott, the work of the principal Jewish factories and work shops showed a distinct tendency to expand.
The Nesher Cement Factory in Haifa is now supplying a rapidly growing proportion of Palestine cement requirements; The Shemen Oil Works in Haifa and the Lodzia Textile Factory in Tel Aviv also increased their production. The Dead Sea concession was granted to the Palestine Potash Company in May 1929.
Work on the Haifa harbor begun by the government in May 1929, employed between 700 and 800 men on the preliminary works, of whom during the greater part of the year only five were Jews. In response to representations made to the government on behalf of the Jewish Agency the number of Jews employed was increased in December to 67.
3,505 INDUSTRIAL ESTABLISHMENTS
The first census of industries published by the government at the end of 1929 showed that at the end of May 1928 there were 3,505 industrial establishments in Palestine employing 17,955 persons representing a capital investment of $17,500,000. Information in the possession of the Jewish Agency suggests that between 45 and 50% of the persons employed in Palestinian industries are Jews and that more than 60% of the capital invested comes from Jewish sources.
HADASSAH SPENT $518,840
Reporting on the public health activities, the Jewish Agency shows that the expenditure of the Hadassah medical organization during 1929 amounted to $518,840 of which $419,370 was spent on hospitals and dispensaries and an additional $35,000 on infant welfare work. Of the Hadassah’s total expenditures in Palestine about 80% is supplied by the Hadassah, Women’s
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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.
