A gigantic plan for the accumulation of twenty million pounds of Jewish capital for land purchase in Palestine, was proposed by M. Ussishkin, head of the Jewish National Fund, in a speech delivered at a press conference here.
“The recent tumult raised abroad about Palestine prosperity” said Mr. Ussishkin, “was harmful and only served to mislead World Jewry. Of the 323,000 dunams which the Jewish National Fund possesses, we obtained only 40,000 during the last three years which is a lower rate of progress than in any previous period.”
He went on to say that “private orange groves do not mean national prosperity.”
Mr. Ussishkin presented figures showing that at least twenty million pounds were deposited throughout the world in different banks as Jewish endowment funds. He calculated that if these sums would be deposited with the Jewish National Fund, the Jewish National Fund would pay to the institutions concerned, the same interest as they were receiving elsewhere. At the same time, these vast sums could be utilized for buying land in Palestine, an investment, which was today safer than any bank. In that way none would suffer loss, while gigantic land areas could be acquired for the Jewish people.
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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.
