Youth Coming Back to Fold, Survey Shows

Jewish youth is tending increasingly to identify itself with “some purposeful Jewish movement,” a survey in 200 cities of the United States reveals, Junior Hadassah, the young women’s Zionist Organization of America, announced yesterday.

The study was made in connection with the current membership drive of Junior Hadassah and the conclusion is based on detailed reports received from thirty-five states.

Miss Nell Ziff of Minneapolis, national chairman of the campaign to enlarge the enrollment, in a report sent to headquarters here says:

“Never before was there such widespread eagerness and zeal on the part of Jewish girls of this country to be a vital part of a movement by and for Jews.

“Of course, there have always been Jewish girls whose consciousness of race was strong and who gave their efforts to some Jewish cause, notably Zionism, but Junior Hadassah chairmen in all parts of the country today say they are overwhelmed by the response to work for the upbuilding of Palestine as a Jewish homeland. Membership rallies in large and small cities and in all parts of the country are filled to overflowing.”

Miss Ziff asserted it is evident “the challenge of Hitlerism” is serving as a spur to action.

“It is plain,” her report amplifies, “that American Jewish youth is deeply affected by the plight of Jews in anti-Semitic countries and is ready to fling its energy and vitality to a cause that is today the only answer to Hitlerism—the cause that aims to build a strong, progressive, sound, humanitarian Palestine as a haven and home for the Jews.”

Wolf Bloch of Schwihau, Bohemia, is supposed to have been the first Jew in St. Louis, settling there in 1816.