Thursday, Apijl 10, 1941
JEWISH WESTERN BULLETIN
5
he
lOdem txodus o Pdlestlne
by Dr. Stephen S. Wise
In an inspiring analogy dravm 'between the ancient and modem exodus to Palestine, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, chairman of the Administrative Committee of the United Palestine Appeal, se«i Passover tlds year as a symbol of the lilieration of the Jews in Palestine from oppression—-THE EDITOB. Somewhere in the Mediterranean old, dilapidated freighters loaded with homeless Jews are making their way to Palestine. These wanderers lare enacting the modern counterpart Of the exodus of the Jews from an-bient Egypt. To the hundreds of men, women and children herded to-irether like cattle in the holds of re-|fugee iships, the celebration of Pass-aver is not a relic of the remote past. It represents, in fact, a sorrowful phronical of their own suffering and ight from bondage under a modem Pharoah. In their agony and hun-?er, as they huddle together in the lark corners of the unseaworthy vessel, the final words of the Passover lervice ring in their ears. liOUder louder, clearer and clearer, until JI consciousness of other things van-shes. Above everything rises the rayer, "Next Year in Jerusalem." Weeks and months have passed, lie ship has constantly zigzagged £f its course to avoid enemy craft or iritish patrols. These refugees do ot have certificates. They must be mded in secrecy or else be appre-ended and placed in internment amps. But for them "Next Year in Brus'al«ifitt^'"fias become '_'Next week Jerusalem" and the lest ordeal of kisery does not break their spirit. iFor the Jews in Palestine and for hundreds of thousands in the irk ghettos of Nazi-controlled Eur-|)e who yearn to find their way to lestine, Passover takes on a new id cogent meaning far more pro-\uad and soul-stirring than the or-exodus from Egypt. In fact, /them the existence of modern Palatine with its capacity to absorb in-igly large numbers of refugees comparable to the miracle of the ing of the Red Sea. Passover Palestine is a process of reliving |)t merely the history of the Jews a people, but their personal his-Iries as slaves under the German laroah and as free men redeemed
through the rebuilding of the Jewish National Home.
There Can be no greater testimony to the paramount importance of Palestine than the fact that even in this year of devastating war Jews are continuing to reach the shores of the Promised Land. Although the war has blocked normal shipping lanes in the Mediterranean, the overwhelming pressure of men and women struggling desperately to escape the Nazi ring of steel and barbarism has shaped new roads to freedom. The exodus from Hitler-dominated Europe to Palestine is proceeding through three major routes. The Jews who are situated in Western Europe sail from Lisbon on vessels which round the Cape of Good Hope and reach Palestine through the Indian Ocean. Jewish refugees in Rumania and Bulgaria and other Central and Eastern European countries travel to Istanbul where they take the overland route through Turkey and Palestine. Others have started out from Vilno, crossed Soviet Russia into Japan and sailed from there through the Pacific, through the Indian Ocean to Iran, Iraq and to Palestine. More than 30,000 Jews have reached Palestine through these channels since the outbreak of the war. In some instances refugees have reached Palestine in small vessels which were able to follow a course close to the Eastern Mediterranean shore to avoid enemy ships.
During the past eight years 300,000 Jews have entered Palestine with the help of the United Palestine Appeal. This is a remarkable achievement, for it represents a greater influx tlian to all other countries in the world combined. It is remarkable also because at a time when Jewish pioneers and idealists were concerned with building the structure of the Jewish homeland, Palestine was called upon to fulfill the role of the foremost haven for refugees. During the past eight years the Jewish community in Palestine was faced With the dual task of carrying on the normal program for the reconstruction of tfie Jewish National Home and at the sarde time providing for the absorption of tens of thousands of homeless Jews annually. It answered the distress call of Jews fleeing from
Passover Message from Samuel Bronfnum, President Canadian Jewish Congress
The management and staff of the I>evon Cafe take pleasure in extending sincere Passover Greetings to their many Jewish friends, and wish that they shall continae to enjoy their favorite dining spot at the Devon!
GOOD FOOD!
The Devon's famous foods are prejiared and cooked by a highly-trained all-white staff in a dean, modem kitchen.
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Vassover Greetings
TO OUB MANY JEWISH FBIENDS AND PATBONS
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Passover Greetings to our many Jewish friends and patrons
GRETA BAYNEB
Wedding Bouquets and Corsage Specialists
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BIArine 1036
In this period of great struggle on' behalf of the eternal principles of liberty and justice, the festival of Passover comes to us full of the inspiration of a similar struggle which also ended, as even the present one must and will, in victory and triumph. For the Pliaroahs of history may, with the passage of time, have changed their tactics and their weapons; their objective remains the same—the enslavement of their fel-lowmen.
Then as now, an arrogant tyrant sought to fling into the waters, of perdition, all those not of his race, preserving for his o\m race, a regimented existence subject to his own caprice and whim; then, as now, Pharoah—^his aliases are many, his identity the same—imposed upon his fel-lowmen his servile taskmasters, his obedient Gauleiters. Then as now, a dictator attempted to build for his personal glory pyramids fashioned out of human suffering, mortared with the blood and sweat of enslaved people. And now, even as then, the nefarious attempt to reduce civilized mankind to the status of beasts of burden, serving a so-called superior race, must be thwarted and its agents destroyed!
Towards this noble objective—the liberation of the human mind, the emancipation of humankind, from the bondage which the contemporary Pharoah seeks to impose on it—all the free forces of the world are united. Leading that union of democratic resistance against the powers of darkness, is the British Commonwealth of Nations of which we Jews are proud citizens and to the protec-
tion of which we have dedicated all our powers, all our energies, our lives—anything and everything that can stand up as a bulwark against the hard hearts of the latter-day Pharoah and all his minions. It is a struggle in which we cannot and will not cease until, in our day, the Passover emancipation is repeated once again. It is true that many dark days may be ahead of us. The world is even now crossing its red sea. But the hope of all of us is that soon, soon, that sea will be crossed, and on the other side thereof will be found the promised land of a happier life of freedom and decency for all mankind.
SAMUEL BRONFMAN, President, Can. Jewish Congress.
Nazi oppression. It met the test of the gravest emergency in Jewish life. It opened wide its doors to the harassed and the hounded. Above all it gave them not merely refuge and sanctuary but a permanent home and a new life. The Arab disorders came in 1936 and brought new hardships and critical economic problems for the Yishuv. In fact, the fundamental cause of these outbreaks was the firm insistence of the Jews in Palestine that Jewish immigration must continue without hindrance. And so, in the midst of severe -attack, .the Jews of Palestine defended themselves heroically and at the same time courageously carried on their colonization and upbuilding activities to make room for the Jews clamoring at its gates for admission.
Throughout the years of Nazi oppression and expulsion, American Jewry helped Palestine, meet the war paralleled problem of Jewish home-lessness through its increasing support of the United Palestine Appeal. The United Palestine Appeal provided funds for the establishment of new agricultural colonies, for the purchase of land, for settlement, for the development of new industries to extend the economic structure, for the training of Jewish pioneers for agricultural life, for education, for the retaining of refugees and for the promotion of every other phase of the upbuilding of the Jewish homeland.
Today there are 257 agricultural colonies throughout Palestine sustaining a rural Jewish population of 137,000 or more than 25 per cent of the total Jewish population of the country. The economic restratiflca-tion of Jewish life, the development of a modern Jewish peasantry have been the pillars of the reconstruction of the Jewish homeland. Through years of toil and sacrifice in redeeming the arid and waste lands of Palestine, Jewish refugees have dramatically demonstrated the capacity of Jews to be good farmers and tillers of the soil.
The outbreak of the war brought new problems and crises to the Jews of Palestine. The impact of the conflict upon their economic life was sharply felt in many spheres of industrial and agricultural activity. The interruption of the export trade dealt a severe blow to the citrus industry. The Jewish Agency for Palestine found itself confronted with' the tasks of restoring Palestine's economic stability and relieving the need of Jews affected by the gccnomic dislocation.
With characteristic energy the Jewish community in Palestine not only undertook to deal with these economic problems, but immediately proceeded with the registration of all its manpower to help Britain win the war against Nazism. Even before the conflict spread to the Mediterranean the Jewish Agency had registered more than 136,000 men and women for emergency war service. The modern industrial machine built up through the sacriflce and enterprise of the past two decades, was immediately harnessed for the production
of vital war materials from armored cars to gunsights and sound detectors. Not all of the men whom the Jews of Palestine are ready to place at the disposal of Britain have been called to active military duty, but more than 9,000 Jewish soldiers from Palestine have already distinguished themselves on the Greek front and in the extraordinary British victories in North Africa. Jewish soldiers from Palestine have courageously carried the Jewish flag into battle against the totalitarian forces that ;seek<^the destrpction not^nly- of "the Jewish people but of civilization as a whole. Agriculturally and industrially Palestine may well be considered the arsenal and granary for democracy in the Middle East. More than 50,000 additional dunams of land have been placed under cultivation since the beginning of the war and the intensive efforts of the Jewish pioneers have made possible an increase of 40% in agricultural production during that period.
Palestine is a vital link in the defense of Britain in the Mediterranean. Jewish refugee scientists and industrialists who were driven out of Germany are today making an outstanding contribution to the defense of the Jewish homeland and of democracy. The Jews of Palestine who have gone to drive back the wave of Nazi conquest are flghting the battle of the Jewish people as well as the battle of Britain. They are flghting the battle of the Jews in concentration camps and ghettos of Europe. The banner of freedom which they carry aloft becomes the most dramatic challenge to the yellow badge which the oppressors of our people wish to spin on all of us wherever we may be.
There is great hope for the survival of our people in the inspiring achievements of Palestine as homeland, haven and bastion of democracy. But as the momentous months of 1941 roll on, Palestine will be in greater need of material and moral assistance from the Jews ci!. the United States. The threefryld program which it is required to carry on in the face of mounting war problems will tax its resources to a maximum. Palestine has the manpower and the industrial and agricultural possibilities to meet the test of the war in the Eastern Mediterranean. It is, however, urgently in need of funds to enable it to realize its potentialities to the full in behalf of the refugees who continue to come to its shores and in behalf of the forces of democracy which will rely upon it in increasing measure for the materials of war.
For the Jews of Palestine, Passover will this year mark their liberation from oppression. It will also symbolize the efforts of Jews everywhere to regain their freedom. From this day on all of us must labor with greater devotion to build, develop and safeguard the Jewish homeland so that hundreds of thousands of Jews uprooted from Central and Eastern European lands may be able to find their way to Palestine when peace comes and the modern Pharaohs have been destroyed.
Happy Passover
To The
Many Jewish Friends
of
Vancouver's First Department Store
ID art MAY MTa
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