and lectures on Palestine, on our colonizing efforts, on the National Fund, the Colonial Bank, and the other Zionistic institutions and industrial undertakings.
ee - Teuhel New societies were formed. The number of associates of the Palestine Committee and cf members in the Palestine Society who paid annual contributions constantly grew. All this expressed itself very soon in much greater degree; plenty.of money pouring in on the committee from varimme entirces
Thus, the income of the committee, according to the preliminary report for September, amounted to 2,348 rubles; for October, 5,615 rubles; for November, 4,573 rubles; for December, 5,249 rubles; for January, 1907, 5,0% rubles—altogether 22,815 rubles (about 49,-000 marks, or $12,250. This sum is composed of membership dues (about half), plate collections, which are taken up on the eve of the Day of Atonement in almost all Russian synagogues by friends of the Palestine Committee (in this year alone, these plate collections amounted to about 7,200 rubles), and all sorts of other con tributions, great and small.
It should here be remarked that the income from plate collections, by a decision of the Palestine Committee, is to be used to obtain land for agricultural laborers. The land obtained is to be given over to the management of the National Fund. The income from collections on the evenings devoted to the committee on the other hand is to be used in equal parts for the purchase of land and the school system of Palestine. Besides the sums mentioned above, the committee has succeeded in obtaining through the intermediation of its president, Mr. Ussischkin, a contribution of 10,000 rubles from Mr. J. Feinberg, of Irkutsk, an honorary member, for the erection of a building to house the girls’ school established by the committee at Jaffa. This sum has already been handed over to the Anglo-Palestine Company in Jaffa, and it is to be/hoped that the wish of all friends of our school in Jaffa, (which at present is attended by over 300 pupils) to build for it a home of its own, will now be fulfilled.
Besides the sums that come to the Odessa Palestine Committee directly, there are yet others which, thanks to the propagandistic ac-
tivity of the speakers it has sent out, accrue to the various institutions inaugurated by the party (the sale of stock in the "Geulah," and in the Anglo-Palestine Company, etc.).
Along with the oral agitation there is a manifold agitation by the written word. In the first place should be mentioned the weekly paper, Jewreiskaja Mysl, established by the Palestine Committee, which is devoted primarily to the pure Palestinian colonizing problem, and which, after an existence of only four months, shows a circulation by far the largest of all Zionist organs, an indication how much public opinion in Zionistic circles is intent upon actual work in Palestine.
Next to this weekly, should be mentioned the Palestine publishing house founded by a member of the Palestine Committee, and of the Zionist Actions Committee, Dr. J. Sapir. This well-calculated undertaking has, thanks to the energetic efforts of individual members of the committee as well as to the Palestine Committee as a whole, become very successful, and renders excellent service to our movement. The house has published and circulated by the thousands, within a few months, a series of first-rate brochures on various questions concerning life in Palestine. At present the establishment is engaged in getting out the handbook on Palestine by Davis Tritsch in the Russian language, a treatise on sanitary hygiene in Palestine by the physician, H. Joffe, who has lived for fifteen years in Jaffa, and a collection of articles on actual work in Palestine, in Russian and Yiddish, by Prof. Warburg, Dr. Oppenheimer, Mr. Ussischkin, Prof. B. Schatz and others. The Palestine Committee, besides, is constantly sending to its representatives, propagandistic circulars and is in frequent communication by letter with very many places all through Russia.
The new committee has rendered still another service that ought not to be felt unmentioned. It has recalled to life the Hebrew periodical Haschiloach, founded by Achad-Haam, which had ceased to appear on account of financial difficulties. It has done this, too, without itself being required to make any material sacrifice. As soon as the newly chosen Palestine Committee had been constituted, the writers and publicists associated with it, is-