can already ascribe to this movement the rays of national culture that Palestine is sending into the Diaspora, and by it, it will be possible to measure the significance that will accrue to every enterprise in the land. The Organization of Zionist Students will hold as one of its principal tasks "the education of its members for Zionist activity in Palestine and in the Orient." The necessary means have already been partly provided and the rest must be supplied by the next conference. The muscles must be strengthened and hardened by means of gymnastics, the student body must be attracted and won by open lectures and other means.
In addition all this, the Organization must be granted far-reaching powers. the societies must work, in accordance with a definite plan, otherwise everything will remain as of old, and only another unsuccessful attempt will be recorded. The German Burschen-schaft with its almost military discipline sprang from the German struggle for liberty; the Zionist movement must also have a student body, prepared for defense and aggression, loyal to the Zionist banner, obedient to the Zionist leaders, a band of peaceful men and women, but well equipped for the strenuous work of colonization.
—Translated from "Die Welt," by I. G.
The Bezalel Institute
The Need of a Working Capital
None of the Jewish institutions in Palestine can point to such a rapid development as the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem. It was founded by a special committee in Berlin in January, 1906, and taken over in the following October by the Bezalel Society. A carpet-weaving atelier, together with workrooms for spinning and dyeing, was already opened in the same year, in addition to the school consisting of a higher class and a preparatory class. Subsequently departments were introduced for wood carving, filigree work, stone-cutting, Damascus metal work, basket-making, and lithography, whilst in the past year metal chasing, batik work, and ivory-carving were added. A small museum containing archeological and natural history collections, as well as an exhibition of artistic crafts has also been added to the school.
Since February, 1908, the society has occupied a magnificent building belonging to the Jewish National Fund in the best part of Jerusalem; in 1910 a large adjoining house was rented from the Jewish National Fund and a new carpet atelier was constructed. At the same time the first workmen's colony for Yemenite filigree workers was established in the country, near Lydda, upon an estate of the Jewish National Fund, whilst in 1911, for
the first time a number of trained carpet weavers were employed in their own dwellings by the school. The foundation was thus laid for the transplanting of artistic industries to the country and for the introduction of regular home industries in the towns. Whoever is acquainted with Palestinian conditions knows what it means to provide the population of Jerusalem with the possibility of settling upon the land or of getting work to do at home.
The number of men, women and children employed in the Bezalel has risen in the last four years from 100 to 457, and this institution now represents by far the greatest industrial undertaking in Jerusalem, and indeed in the whole of Palestine. As the articles manufactured there entirely respond to the refined taste of Europe and America, their sale is a comparatively easy matter. Owing to the Bezalel exhibitions held in one town after another no cases occur of unsaleable goods or articles reduced in price. Large business houses and general stores have also shown an interest in the artistic manufactures of the Bezalel and gave some considerable orders last year. An agreement has just been effected with a big company specially founded for this purpose in Warsaw, which has undertaken to buy goods