The Maccabaean

Chaluka in Need of Reform

Investigation reveals the helplessness of charities in Palestine; Reform is inevitable as Palestine is daily becoming the centre of healthy Zionist activities to which the present state of things will be found to be disagreeable.

"Palestinian Charities" is the subject of a thorough and interesting report submitted by Miss Henrietta Szold of New York. The report said in part: "That there are trustees of institutions, good ones at that, whose skill at 'graft' might put to shame the proverbial American politician, cannot be denied. Palestinian humans are human. But in spite of the cunning of the most avaricious, there are not many who have grown overfat in Palestine. Besides, not a small percentage of the fruits of 'graft' is known to have clung to deft fingers on this side of the ocean as well as in European centres, much more than can be accounted for by the alleged expenses of collection and administration. This is said to be particularly true of the well-rooted and widespread institution of the Chaluka, an institution whose beginnings in one form or another, are perhaps coincident with the very beginning of the Dispersion, and whose analogue may be sought in the Christian practice of maintaining religious houses and religious recluses on spots in the Holy Land sanctified by historical associations."

Sentiment for tradition hangs so heavily upon Jewry that no one dares to lay rude hands upon the Chaluka. No one actually knows when this habit, of providing charity for the Jews in Palestine, began, but it is safe to place it amongst the earliest existing forms of charity.

In the middle ages Palestine was a very long way off, and between tradition and fable the land was indeed holy. Work, therefore, in the centre of sanctity was not to be thought of, and gradual growth of

the idea that all who went to Palestine should be provided for, so that they could give all their days to sacred study, was perfectly natural. Besides, the immigrants were few and the cost of their keeping small. The idea, that of providing for a mass of people so that they should merely vegetate, is probably not Jewish in origin, though it is Oriental. But ages of practice overrode the rabbinic theories of life and labor, until the Chaluka itself became sanctified, and a certain mysticism kept intact the little tin charity box as part of the furniture of thousands of even modern homes.

The charities of Palestine should, however, be wholly reformed from top to bottom, not because of any graft in their administration, but because Palestine is fast becoming the centre of Zionist activities. If there were courage enough to handle the problem, all the pious people who never worked, or went to Palestine to pray and die, would be housed in groups, while all those strong enough to work and young enough to learn some means of earning a livelihood would be set to that task. By such a reform they all would be better off, the old secure in regular rations, the younger elements turning away from charity as the source of substance for themselves and future generations.

The Hebrew Language Board ("Waad Halashon") in Jerusalem, which is entrusted with the examination and determination of the Hebrew terminology in all branches of knowledge, has been recently reorganized and has now begun its activity. It will, in the first place, publish a series of small dictionaries which will fix the terminology of technical, physical and philosophical sciences. It is to be hoped that the "Waad Halashon" will soon be in the possession of adequate means to carry out fully its comprehensive labors.