Wellesley Alumna is Lyrical in Her Description of Palestine

A young Wellesley graduate, Evelyn Shoolman, finds Palestine today “as modern a country as America.” Terming it a “colorful and vital” land, she writes in a report to the American Palestine Campaign that “it provides a thrill that is intensely spiritual.”

Miss Shoolman, daughter of the Boston philanthropist, Max Shoolman, is now in Palestine. After her graduation from Wellesley, Miss Shoolman did social work for several years in Boston. She visited Palestine on a round-the-world cruise and made her stay an extended one, so interesting did she find the Jewish homeland.

FATHER ACTIVE WORKER

Miss Shoolman’s father has been an active Palestinian worker. He became interested in the development of Palestine many years ago, and was responsible for the building of the business center of Haifa. He also organized the Gan Chaim Corporation, which has developed the largest citrus plantations in Palestine.

Describing the remarkable developments that have taken place in Palestine during the past few years, which have made possible the absorption of tens of thousands of Jews and which have created facilities for the absorption of tens of thousands of others, Miss Shoolman writes:

“From the splendor of Haifa’s port to the opulent oasis of the new Jewish section is a dream of accomplishment. Fine roads are lined with the most modern structures: stores, apartments, cafes. They teem with life and health and proud faces. Shop windows display elegant merchandise and articles from Rue de Rivoli and Fifth Avenue. Cafes glitter with throngs who talk till dawn.

“Hammers ring all day long; workmen jostle each other in joyous labor; trucks arrive by the minute bearing new material.

“I have found a country which never in my wildest imagination did I conceive to exist. It is colorful and vital, but above all that, it provides a thrill that is intensely spiritual.

“Everywhere in Palestine are men and women who find in life the serenity and the peace which all of us moderns dream of but rarely attain. Despite the fact that Palestine is a kaleidoscopic scene of construction and development, of constant growth and improvement, there is about the country an atmosphere of calmness and tranquillity that gives character to the whole effort to rebuild the Jewish National Home. Palestine is today as modern a country as America, but it radiates a spirit which, for Jews, can probably not be found anywhere else.”