“Jews and Arabs will have to get together and solve their common problem in Palestine. It is a mistake to look upon the Arabs as an inferior people. Nor are they all being led by propagandists. The Jew must not imagine that every Arab is a monster.”
These were some of the thoughts expressed by Miss Henrietta Szold, honorary president of Hadassah, women’s Zionist organization, before the evening session of the first day of Hadassah’s fifteenth annual convention. The address was the first delivered by Miss Szold since her return to this country from Palestine, where she had remained for two years.
In bringing greetings on behalf of the Zionist Organization of America, Louis Lipsky, president, said that it is now being realized that Zionism is a dynamic force that must come in contact with other dynamic forces. Too many, he said, viewed the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate as inanimate objects. “There was a lack of understanding among us,” he added. “There is bound to be a struggle. It is in the struggle that the National Jewish Home is being built and in this way the new Jewish nation will be born.” The women of America, Mr. Lipsky added, will surely contribute their share.
A prolonged ovation was given to Mrs. Felix Warburg, who told how Miss Szold first interested her in Palestine and Hadassah at a time when she was more interested in similar work in China and South America. “Now I think of Eretz Israel every day.” She made a prolonged plea for unity and harmony among the Jewish women of America, adding the hope that there will be no more factions in Israel so far as Palestine is concerned.
Nathan Straus, veteran philanthropist, called upon the Jews of America to reaffirm their confidence in Palestine as a Jewish homeland and pleads for “renewed zeal and support” in a message read.
Dr. Chaim Weizmann, world Zionist leader, in a cable from London, declared his confidence in Great Britain as a mandatory Power and says that Jewish colonization in Palestine must be hastened.
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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.
