News Brief

The Executive of the World Zionist Organization has started a relief fund for the victims of the Palestine earthquake.

The fund will provide food, shelter and necessary materials for the reconstruction of the destroyed houses.

The Executive announced that it will transmit all contributions to the Palestine Government.

Jewish and Christian organizations and individuals were urged to provide a relief fund for the victims of the Palestine earthquake in an editorial in the New York “Times” last Sunday.

In its second editorial on the subject, the New York “Times” stated:

“The earthquake in the Holy Land will not be a wholly ill thing if it helps to banish the bitter feeling which at times rises to unseemly heights of intensity among the sects gathered around its sacred monuments. The voice of GOD was not in this earthquake in the sense that it was an “act of GOD” with some human punishment as its purpose, as it was not in the earthquake that passed before ELIJAH when he stood on the mount before the Lord; but it may be heard as the “still small voice” in the expressions of human sympathy and mercy that come from all parts of the world to that land which has blest them all through the teachings that, coming forth from that least of territories, have encircled the earth. A cable has been received stating that a General Committee has been formed of all denominations under the chairmanship of Lieut. Col. G. S. Symes, the Chief Secretary of the Palestine Government, for the Earthquake Relief Fund. Mr. Nathan S?raus’s prompt and generous gift is adequate for the immediate need, but the later requirements are likely to be great; at any rate, far beyond those which even this large contribution can meet. Here is an opportunity for Protestant and Catholic, Jew and Gentile, alike to cooperate with the Moslem in a charity which makes the whole world kin.”

The earthquake has caused a mood of depression in Palestine, according to a cable despatch of the Del-Aviv correspondent of the New York “Day.” Many persons are leaving the country, the cable states.

The Tel-Aviv correspondent of the “Jewish Daily Forward” reports that many Arabs, in fear of a recurrence of the earthquake, have asked their Jewish neighbors to give them shelter in their homes, expressing the belief that “God protects the Jews from disaster.”

Belief is also current among Arabs in Jerusalem that the earthquake came as a punishment for the Arabs’ transgression in throwing stones at the Wailing Wall, the cable states.

Rabbi Benjamin A. Axelman, formerly of Richmond. Va., has been appointed rabbi of the Orthodox Community of Charleston, S. C.