Excitement filled the air in the United States in 1920 when the slogan “How to
Grow Old Yet Not Age” appeared in many newspapers around the country. Dr. Ignatz
Nascher, a leading physician and “father of geriatrics,” announced he could
restore the “buoyancy of youth.” In the American Jewish community there was a
youthful faction, too. With 201,000 members in the various Zionist organizations
out of 3,300,000 Jews in the US, these committed individuals were ready to raise
$10 million for Palestine.
Part of that sum would be used to assist in
aliya all over the world. In addition, in the US, there were those in the 20-45
age bracket who were prepared to follow the suggestions of the Jewish
Legionnaires returning from their tour of duty there. These veterans said
proudly, “Very soon after we settle our personal affairs, we intend to return to
Palestine to live.” The Pittsburgh Jewish Criterion noted “a portion of those
Legionnaires who remained in Eretz Israel will be colonists at the new Balfouria
settlement and the others journalists and social workers.”
The Palestine
Restoration Campaign was born at the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA)
convention in Chicago in early December 1919. Judge Julian Mack was the
president and Justice Louis Brandeis was the honorary president of the major US
Zionist organization. Between them and Judge Felix Frankfurter, they were able
to motivate the 600 delegates to get the drive under way by delineating its 11
objectives: A campaign against malaria before any immigrants arrive; the
purchase of lands by the Keren Kayemeth Le Israel-Jewish National Fund and the
Zion Commonwealth; afforestation to stop the sand, aid rainfall, provide timber;
extensive support for water conservation and wide-scale irrigation; aid for
public welfare and communal organization groups; improvement of housing
conditions; development of sanitation and drainage in cities and towns; survey
and development of natural resources; assistance for the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem; improving the Hebrew school system in Palestine; and setting up
technical laboratories for agriculture and industry.
With the call to the
delegates and to the Jews of America of “let us rise up and build,” the cover of
the ZOA’s January 13, 1920
New Palestine newspaper, founded the previous month
as the official organ of the ZOA, carried a full page illustration highlighting
in picturesque drawings what the $10 million 1920 campaign could
accomplish.
Most of the artwork reflected the list cited above. The
artist was E.F. Sapakoff, a devoted member and supporter of the ZOA.
“The
development will require vast sums of money, which only the Americans can
provide at this time since the Europeans are still suffering from the war,” the
newspaper’s editorial said.
The New Palestine emphasized “that all differences
of opinion within the movement and concerning the movement must be forgotten so
the campaign can be successful.”
The final step in preparation for the
campaign occurred on January 17, 1920, a Saturday night.
Thousands
gathered in New York – 3,500 workers gathered for a briefing, 1,500 were in
Manhattan at the Pennsylvania Hotel, 1,000 gathered at the Brooklyn Masonic
Temple, and another 1,000 met at Pythian Hall in the Bronx. “They left these
meetings with orders in their pockets and a renewed ardor for the big job of
combing New York City for $3,500,000.” They did not raise every dollar they
sought, but The New York Times reported that “over $2 million was raised by the
inspired Zionist members.”
Various notables sent messages. Nathan Straus,
after whom the city of Netanya was later named, was a well-known figure because
of his efforts in the field of pasteurization and for the health clinics he had
built in Jerusalem. He was asked to be Honorary Chairman of the National
Committee of the Palestine Restoration Fund and he replied: “To wish you success
would be like wishing myself success – you know how fully I share all your noble
aspirations for the Jewish people.”
Since Brandeis worked behind the
scenes in all these efforts, he hoped that the two major fund-raising bodies in
the US would unite. A meeting was held in New York at Reform synagogue Temple
Emanuel between Joint Distribution Committee leaders and ZOA leaders in December
1919.
The mediator was the noted leader Jacob Schiff. For a time it
appeared that the JDC would join the ZOA in its campaign. Then Julius Rosenwald,
founder of the Sears- Roebuck stores, came out against this plan.
“Many
Jews who are not Zionists contribute to the JDC. Unfortunately, these will
refuse to contribute when they know that a part of the money is to go for
Zionist purposes,” he said. The unity failed, as the American Hebrew newspaper
reported, but the ZOA went forward with its $10 million
campaign.
Clearly, a number of American Jews were not ready to support a
Jewish homeland.
Truth to tell, it was Hitler and the Nazis who finally
aroused them.
In the January 1920 issue of
The New Palestine, there was a
major article on aliya titled “Plans formulated for a scientific control of
immigration into Palestine: Emigrants being registered and classified for their
own good and for Palestine’s.” In spite of the fact that aliya was crucial to
develop the country, the Zionist movement wanted to be careful not to permit
just anyone to move to the homeland. On the one hand, there would be receiving
stations in Haifa for registration purposes to assist the movement of immigrants
to various parts of the country. Moreover, hospitals and quarantine stations
would be built for them. Yet, on the other hand,
The New Palestine reported that
“Zionist officials point out that the difficulty of restraining wholesale
immigration to Palestine from all parts of the world is becoming an acute
problem.”
Sadly, the 1920s began with opposition from some quarters to
having the largest aliya possible.
These telling lines in the “scientific
control” story made the point very clearly.
“This elaborate system of
handling and checking immigration has been devised, it was explained by the
London Zionist office, to guarantee that only persons perfectly fit, physically
and otherwise, to live in Palestine, will comprise the pioneers whose duty it
will be to reclaim the country, and that will be evenly balanced as to
professions and occupations so that there will be no dearth of overabundance of
any kind.”
Fortunately, a few months later in the fall of 1920, Herbert
Samuel became the first high commissioner of the British Palestine Mandate. With
his encouragement immigrants came to Palestine in the Third and Fourth Aliyot in
great numbers throughout the ’20s.
At the beginning of 1920, it was
reported that 6,000 applications had been filed by American technicians,
engineers, teachers and others willing to help build Jewish Palestine, but very
few of them ever came.
They could not leave the US in the Roaring
Twenties. One Jewish Legionnaire who did return was Gershon Agronsky, later
Agron, in 1923. In 1932 he founded
The Palestine Post, now
The Jerusalem
Post.
Dr. M.J. Wissotsky and his wife from Los Angeles tried aliya for a
few years. In a letter from 1922, he wrote this touching description of
Jerusalem: “When I came to Jerusalem all my plans changed. After I walked
around for a few days on these narrow crooked, hilly, stony, funny and in the
same time most wonderful streets where every stone speaks to you of our
forefathers... I realized we were here for good.”
On Israel’s 64th we are
all here for good.
In honor of Danya Benovitz of Jerusalem.
