The Maccabaean

Under the joint auspices of the London Zionist League and the London University Zionist Society, Dr. Mossinsohn, principal of the Hebrew Gymnasium at Jaffa, during his recent stay in England, gave an address on that institution.

Sir Francis Montefiore, who presided, welcomed Dr. Mossinsohn, and said that whatever differences of opinion there might be among the Jewish people there was none in regard to the importance of a good education. Deep as was the interst which they took in all matters that concerned education, it was doubly so in regard to education in the Holy Land. He thought that all were agreed that, whatever might be the future of Palestine, it ought to be the centre of Jewish culture and learning. It was especially easy for Palestine to become this centre, as it was the only country in which education could be absolutely modern and at the same time religious, in which the child could be trained to be a good subject of the State and at the same time a good Jew, one who honored the traditions of the Jewish past. He felt that the Heberw Gymnasium in Jaffa, which drew its pupils from many different countries, would do much to consolidate the good feeling that ought to exist among Jews all over the world, members of the same race, animated and sustained by the same glorious faith. He hoped that liberal support would be extended to the appeal to be made by Dr. Mossinsohn.

Dr. Mossinsohn, speaking in German, said he greatly regretted that he had to speak in German. It was difficult for him to speak in that language, but as Hebrew was not understood by all his audience and he did not understand English, he had to try to make himself intelligible in that intermediary language. When they spoke

of Palestine, they spoke of a land which must have an interest for the whole of Jewry—from the standpoint of its future or perhaps only as the land of its past. He had been asked to speak about the Gymnasium at Jaffa. He could not speak about that institution without touching uopn the general condition of the Jews in Palestine, for the Gymnasium was to a certain extent only an item in a great movement. Jewish colonization began in Palestine about thirty years ago. There was a Jewish population in the Holy Land before that time, but the Jews then had merely gone to Palestine to die. These were not the people who could create a new life in the country. The regeneration began with the commencement of colonization, thirty years ago. There were now thirty colonies, which were developing and progressing, and there were also many Jews who did not occupy themselves with agriculture but who had settled in the towns—in Jaffa, in Jerusalem, and in Haifa—and who had created their own centres. The Jews in Palestine had not only shown themselves capable of agriculture, they had shown themselves capable of creating new life. It had often been said of the Semites in general, and of the Jews in particular, that they had no capacity for corporate life—no Staatsbildungskraft. But the Jews in Palestine had shown that they possessed the requisite powers of cohesion. They had created an autonomous life there for themselves. Once they had paid their taxes, their tribute to the State, they were left entirely to themselves. No police or judicial authorities interfered with them—everything was in their own hands. But

COMPLETE ORDER AND TRANQUILLITY.

prevailed owing to the moral power exercised by the committees to which they had