“I went to Palestine to see what is happening to the Jewish spirit out there. I went out to ask, What do Jews become in Palestine. The answer is, They become Free men.”
This was the substance of a report brought back from Palestine by Maurice Samuel, noted novelist, poet and author of “You Gantiles”. His address was delivered at a reception tendared to him by the Zionist Organization of America at the Hotel Astor, New York, last night.
In describing what he meant by Jewish freemen, Mr. Samuel made clear that quite a different concept prevailed in Palestine from that which prevails throught the rest of the world. In Palestine, the thousands of recent immigrants who have been rescued from pogrom-ridden countries, look open self-reliance as being synonymous with freedom. They believed that they would become free when they would cease to be dependent on others, not merely for their political rights, but for their economic existence. It was this belief that filled them with extraordinary energy and gave them the endurance to pull through the first years of suffering in the hope that they would establish themselves in complete independence.
Under the spur of this faith, Jewish pioneers in Palestine have produced altogether unexpected results. Mr. Samuel instanced the development of the Valley of Jezreel, the great rift of fruitful land which breaks up the mountains of central Palestine.
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