Robert Szold, who with Mrs. Szold, sailed Saturday on the Conte di Savoia for a three months tour of Palestine believes that Palestine and the adjacent Near East is one of the few undeveloped sections of the world. Further, he believes that this rich section will be the locale of the next great industrial development.
“The Near East,” said Mr. Szold when interviewed prior to his sailing, “is analagous to the great American Southwest of fifty years ago before it was developed and proper transportation facilities spanned it. I believe that Palestine, Transjordania, Syria and other nearby sections will be the scene of the next great world industrial development.”
LONG ACTIVE FOR PALESTINE
Mr. Szold, former president of the Zionist Organization of America and vice-chairman of the Council of the Jewish Agency, has long been active in the development of Palestine. Of late years, since the Brandeis-Mack group left the Zionist organization, he has confined himself to the economic phases of Palestine while ignoring its political aspects.
Mr. Szold, a New York attorney, is vice-president of the Palestine Economic Corporation, chairman of the board of directors of the American Economic Committee for Palestine, a director of the Palestine Potash Ltd., a director of the Central Bank for Cooperative Institutions in Palestine and treasurer of the Palestine Endowment Funds.
MISSION UNOFFICIAL
The present trip is Mr. Szold’s third to Palestine, his first since 1920. Although he will report on his findings to the organizations that he is connected with, Mr. Szold insists that his mission is unofficial. “Just a private citizen,” he says, “checking up on some of his interests.”
Of Zionist politics, Mr. Szold will say nothing:
“The political phases of Zionism,” he explains, “are temporary and in a state of flux; economic phases are more enduring. As a general Zionist I am not interested in party politics.”
MUST KNOW NEARBY LANDS
Returning to the subject of his present trip, Mr. Szold stressed the point that to really know Palestine, one has to know and understand the surrounding countries.
“The future of any one country,” he said, “is tied up with the general region in which it lies. It is for that reason that I intend visiting the Mosul Oil Fields, Baghdad, Transjordania, Syria, Turkey and Egypt.
“The future development of the whole section,” continued Mr. Szold, “depends upon the building of a transportation system that will allow the rich resources of these countries to be converted into commodities of trade. The Mosul oil pipe-line is a beginning. There is no telling to just what extent this development may continue.”
Accompanying her husband on his trip is Mrs. Henrietta Szold, a former president of Hadassah who is now a vice-president of the organization and national chairman of the group’s Palestine Committee. She will look into the affairs of the new Rothschild-Hadassah-University Hospital and bring back a report.
Of his wife, Mr. Szold said: “Politically she is more important than I am. She represents forty thousand American women, a very important factor in the Zionist movement in America.”
A graduate of Harvard Law School, Mr. Szold was for some time a member of the United States Legal department and in 1915 acted as Assistant Attorney General of Porto Rico. In 1916 he served as assistant to the solicitor of the United States. He is now head of the law firm of Szold, Brandwein and Perkins.
SERVED ON 1919 BODY
In Zionism, Szold is known as a member of the 1919 Zionist Commission in Palestine. In 1920 he served as a member of the Simon-De Lieme-Szold Reorganization Committee whose report precipitated the break in the Zionist. Organization that removed the Brandeis-Mack group from the Zionist body. Following the rift in the Zionist Organization in 1921, Mr. Szold served as president of president of the Palestine Cooperative Corporation from 1922-25 and has been a vice-president and one of the prime movers of the Palestine Economic Corporation since its inception.
Slight of frame, above middle height, with lean, strongly moulded features, Mr. Szold is a loyal Zionist who continued his Zionist activities during the long years when he had no official connection with the Zionist Organization in America. He has always followed the precepts laid down by Supreme Court Justice Brandeis in the famous Zealand Memorandum.
The Simon-De Lieme-Szold reorganization plan—which incorporated Justice Brandeis views—laid special emphasis on the necessity for colonization, immigration and settlement—principles which still endure fifteen years later as Mr. Szold goes back to revisit Palestine.
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.
