News Brief

London Jews paid tribute to the memory of Achad Ha’am the late Hebrew writer who spent the most fruitful period of his life in this city.

Nahum Sokolow, chairman of the Zionist Executive, presided at a memorial meeting arranged by the Zionist Organization. Bernard Feiwel and Leon Simon were the speakers.

Mr. Sokolow, in opening the meeting, was overcome by grief. Achad Ha’am spent his rich and fertile life in sowing seeds, he said. Although he did not live to see them ripen, he lived to see the work of upbuilding the Jewish National Home as a reality. He saw the work on the threshhold of its realization and was able to spend his last days in a Jewish city in Palestine.

A large memorial meeting will be held in London shortly.

The Zionist Council of Greater New York, in conjunction with the Zionist districts from all parts of the city, is arranging a memorial meeting in memory of the late Achad Ha’am. The meeting will be held in one of the large halls of the city during next week.

“Achad Ha’am was one of the few who have the privilege of seeing their life-work realized during their life,” declared Dr. Chaim Tchernovitch, professor of Talmud at the Jewish Institute of Religion, who knew Achad Ha’am during his residence in Odessa. “Achad Ha’am was not in the clouds. He knew the weaknesses of the Jewish people and endeavored to centralize its aspirations. He insisted only on a minimum of political aspirations, which depends on others. He had a different attitude with regard to the spiritual aspirations, the realization of which depends on ourselves. His great call was when a country is destroyed a remedy can be found, but when a people is destroyed, what remedy can avail? He therefore gave preference to the upbuilding of the people over the upbuilding of the country.

“Achad Ha’am was a great sceptic with regard to the possibilities of our generation. He was afraid of the visions characteristic of the Jewish people and feared that perhaps the Zionist movement had something of the Messianic movement of the previous generation. He concentrated, therefore, the force of his logic to prove the necessity and to limit the movement to the confines of possible realization. Necessity and possibility were the two weapons of his logic,” Dr. Tchernovitch declared.