News Brief

The overcrowded steamers arriving here every Monday and Wednesday are bringing hundreds of Jews from Poland, from Roumania, from Austria and from Germany.

Jews from Germany are attracted to Palestine no less than are those from Eastern Europe. The first consideration of German Jews is to save themselves from the Hitlerite Gehenna, to seek a restful refuge. They therefore flee to Palestine, which is now the quietest corner of the world for Jews.

It is pitiful to observe the groups of German Jews each arriving steamer thrusts upon the docks of Jaffa and Haifa, to observe their discouragement, their broken spirit.

They discover, first of all, that they are speechless people, speechless in the full sense of the word, people without a language. Their German culture, their German education, their German traditions all are useless, without value on the cultural exchange of Palestine.

They find a country, a life, a language and traditions all new to them. It is quite unpleasant at first, quite difficult to have to make transitions so thoroughgoing as they will have to make.

Formerly arrivals from Germany were wont to look upon Palestine as upon a mad caprice of the “Ost Juden,” the Jews of Eastern Europe. For years they have considered Zionism as rather queer and somewhat disreputable.

Now the great disaster in Germany has driven them here, to a land in which they never dreamed they would have to go, a land in which their Germanicism has no meaning, a land where they will have to adjust themselves to the “Ost Juden” and not the “Ost Juden” to them.

This unexpected assimilation, this transition from being “a German Jew” to “a Jew from Germany”,—is very difficult and painful during their first days. It is difficult for the adults and for the children.

It does not take long, however, before they have become a part of their new home, a part of the small nation where every individual is of consequence and where every new immigrant is a desirable guest.

THEIR BRIDGES ARE BURNED

Several weeks after their arrival, almost without being aware of it, these German Jews become part of the community, as much as though they had been living in the country for many years; the adults become absorbed in work and the children in school.

Little by little they begin to feel at home. Having burnt their bridges to Germany they gradually find out that they could hardly have done themselves a better service than settle in the land on which they looked with such condescension while in Germany.

Coming in contact here with Jews from Russia, from Poland and from America they discover that the “Ost Jude” is not so inferior a creature as they had thought he was. They discover that the artificial barrier which stood for generations between the Jews of Germany and the Jews of Eastern European countries was perhaps justified before the war, but certainly not after.

Upon this revaluation of values they resolutely begin to establish themselves in Palestine permanently.

Those with small capital settle in Haifa, Tel-Aviv, or in the more industrial centers in which the prospects for a good future are most favorable. Those without capital do not feel lost. Among them are engineers, architects, mechanics, technicians,—exactly the kind of worker Palestine is most eager to attract and whom she needs as much as capital.

SINK THEIR ROOTS ANEW

After a few weeks the shadow of Hitlerite Germany becomes more and more an unpleasant memory. At rest and secure in Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv, or Haifa, they read anxiously the sad news of their “old home” and sympathize with those relatives and friends in Germany who may still be suffering at the hands of Hitler and his Nazis.

Germany, their old home, becomes a far away and distant country. Their new home is Palestine, in which they seek to sink their roots deeply and securely.

One walks through the streets of Tel-Aviv and hears German everywhere. German has now become the dominating language in Tel-Aviv. One hears it in the cafes, in the movies, in the stories, in amusement places, everywhere.

The Jews of Tel-Aviv, the old Hebrew-speaking settlers, are not upset over the fact that the German language has suddenly obtaine### upper hand. On the contrary, ### see in this a happy phenomenon, ### see only the good side of it. H### in the fact that more and more ### are coming to settle, they se### harm in the German speech, as### that after a short time the new ### rivals will be weaned from their ### language and that Hebrew will ### its place.

The newly arrived German ### have organized groups for the s### ous study not only of Hebrew ### also the other problems that ar### culiar to Palestine.

There is already in existenc### Palestine an organization c### “Brith Olei Germania” (Union ### German Jews) that welcomes ### newcomers from Germany and ma### them feel at home. There also ex### smaller and larger circles of Germ### Jews that embody both the spirit ### the old German home and the a### sphere of the new home of Pales###Only after a week or so of co###sion and bewilderment, the Ge### Jews become fully acclimate### Palestine as though they had ### living here for generations. ### idea of returning to Germany ### of their mind.