The proposed new criminal code for Palestine makes adultery a crime, the penalty being a two-year prison sentence and a fine of £100 for the woman as well as for the man. The “co-respondent” may be sent to prison for six months. However, the law draws a distinction between husband and wife; the former has a right to sin, but the wife has not.
The 1931 census shows that in the oriental countries, ten girls had been married by the age of five, 14 had been married by the age of 10, and just under 200 by the age of 15.
An Irishman was charged with stealing a pound note from a Jew. The Irishman pleaded guilty, and said he took the money to punish the Jew for his sin, explaining that the latter asked him to get the note changed on a Saturday, and as Saturday was the Jewish Sunday he had walked off with the note. The Judge admonished the Irishman for taking such punishment in his own hands, and the repentant Irishman replied, “I realize that now, and if you can persuade yourself to overlook it, I will promise never to compete with the Almighty again.”
The Reich postal authorities are now engaging upon a research into the family histories of their 350,000 employees, presumably to find out if any of them had Jewish grandmothers. The inquiry will last four months, at an enormous expense.
The Aryan Gazette, one of Germany’s Nazi organs, has discovered another Jewish plot in England! To prove how Jews have worked their way secretly into power over the British government, it says that one Jew has been made an M.B.E., and then explains in brackets, that this means “Bachelor of Medicine.”
In England, the wife of a small town business man has gone to court with the complaint that her husband had taken a fancy to their Jewish servant, and made her manager of the shop at a good salary, ordering the wife to leave the shop and do the domestic work. Not only did the girl take her husband, the wife alleged, but she also assumed complete control of her children. The magistrate told her to see the Rabbi about it, and tell him he would have the complete cooperation of the court in seeing that her home rights were restored.
###being a land of romance.
One hardly arrives there when one hears of all sorts of strange, romantic doings. Here’s a pretty, blue-eyed girl, popular with the boys in Chicago, who marries a struggling artist and settles down in a little place near Tel Aviv; a quiet wallflower of Seattle lands one of Jerusalem’s most eligible bachelors and becomes a member of the social set; a handsome young American lawyer whom the girls
###lived on the next block from him at home, while a pretty red-head from Australia comes to Jerusalem and marries a London catch.
Why does romance flourish so much in Palestine when elsewhere it has been depressed out of business. After all, unattached men do not need Palestine in order to marry, and desirable American girls can still find bachelors at home. For we have a higher percentage of unmarried men than any other country.
We have heard many interesting theories advanced. First of all, the people in Palestine have much more leisure. With the exception of the shops, business houses close early in the afternoon. There is time to enjoy the balmy air and the tropical sunshine. There is time for friendship and for normal living. Life is more serene, more peaceful. In such fertile soil romance is apt to flourish.
Another factor is that there is less desire to accumulate money, to “keep up with the Joneses.” Even people of wealth live and dress simply. With this lack of emphasis on money and the material things of life, young people forget financial barriers. They marry on the proverbial shoestring and proceed to prove to the world that two can live as cheaply as one.
And yet a third reason is that the young people, being away from the parental apron strings, fall in love without waiting for relatives to consider the other party’s social antecedents and financial status. Further, friends and even strangers take a great delight in bringing young folks together. One prominent man in Tel Aviv told me with pride, “We want to take care of our boys and girls. We want them to be happy. And if possible, we want them to stay here.”
And that, perhaps, sums up the situation.
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.
