The Maccabaean

I consider it a very happy moment of my life to be able to spend the evening with you. We Jews have always had only one aristocratic class, the learned men alone were considered aristocrats. And it is a pleasure to be among such aristocrats to-night. I consider it a :pecial privilegc to be for one evening at least amang the Jewish college students, because in these days of tke Jewish movement back to Palestine, we must not forget that tre men who started this movement were college and university men. The few Jews who in 1882 started to go to Palestine to regenerate the Jewish life and re-enter the Jewish country where the Jews could develop according to their aspirations and traditions—the men who started this were college men, and a few college girls. That is why I consider it a great privilege to be among you Jewish college men. You are the hope of Israel, and I feel sure every one of you will do his duty as the men who started thirty years ago to Palestine have done theirs.

And I hope you will permit me to tell you what has been achieved in the last thirty years in Palestine by the young men who began their colonization work in 1882.

First, why did they go to Palestine? You will hear from many sides that it was because they had to suffer from persecution in the countries where they were. But there was no more persecution, nor worse, in 1882 than before. They were not driven by outside forces, but it was the revival of the old Jewish loyalty and hopes that the Jewish race would be restored in Palestine. Indeed in the last hundred or hundred and fifty years, we have hearl from self-appointed Jewish representatives that this longing of the Jews for Palestine was not for a certain geographical spot but for something spiritual and ideal: that the good Jews in each country would have their Zion. But the Jewish masses, on the occasion of birth or death, when they express a longing to go to Zion do not mean any spiritual thing but a geographical place. That was

the sentiment that drove the young men to go to Palestine.

The second question was how did it happen that all these young men having a certain material knowledge of the conditions of the country, why did they go to Palestine? Why select such a country, which was considered a hopeless desert? Was it wise to go to Palestine? Here again you find that they did it, and it was wise to do it just because they had high aspirations. They did not go to Palestine to accumulate wealth but because it was their old country, the cradle of the race. Alto it might be a desert, they clung to Palestine with the same tenacity as you see the Prussians sticking to Prussia. Prussia is a very poor land, and still Prussians will not give it up, because it is Prussia. Poland was a marsh. It is the hard work of the people of Poland that has made it a rich country. They knew their life hung with the life of our country, and that is what has driven the Jew to Palestine.

But is Palestine such a hopeless desert as it was described to be? I think the economical development of the country in the last thirty years will show how mistaken people were about Palestine. It was providential that the young men coming to Palestine thirty years ago felt immediately what the Jews needed most was to go back to a life of agriculture. That what we missed most was direct contact with nature. It was absolutely necessary for the Jews to go back and get in contact with nature and carry on an agricultural life. Judaism stands for more than a religion, and they wanted to realize the whole meaning of Judaism, and they felt that they could do it only by living on the soil. So the first pursuits of the young men starting for Palestine were agricultural pursuits.

I will not take much time to tell you what hardships and hard times our parents had to stand. You know how difficult it is to bring city peeople back to the country. You can succeed pretty well with people