The Maccabaean

ism was strengthened by what happened at the Congress. It was not work in Palestine that was attacked, but the kind of work. Fischer, of course, repeated the old idea that nothing at all should be done in Palestine by the organization. It sounded like the beating of wings in a vacuum. Kann limited himself to a critical anaylsis of the Palestine work, and Katzenelson and Wolffsohn discussed only the matter of the Bank control. Sirkin of Odessa enunciated political views, but he favored giving the Inner Actions Comite its discharge. What seemed in the air was the advent of a party that will oppose the theory that every activity in Palestine must per se have political value. The so-called practicals assert that they are politicals

too, but they consider all work in Palestine as of national significance. There is, however, a sharp difference between the work recently engaged in by our movement in Palestine and work of national political significance. The planting of a forest of trees does not come under that category, nor the management of estates. But much of the work that the Palestine Amt and the Anglo-Palestine Company have already done, and much more that can still be done, may propeily come under the category of work in Palestine having national significance. And on the prosecution of such work both “practicals” and “politicals” can and will unite.

The Vienna Congress marks a long step towards the consumation of this union.

The Struggle for the Colonial Bank Control.

The opening of the eleventh Zionist Congress in Vienna marked the resumption of the struggle between the political and practical factions of the organization which the previous congresses had already brought into prominence. The struggle reached its perihelion in the contest between the two factions for the control of the Colonial Bank. Heretofore the Board of Trustees of the Bank consisted of political Zionists, much to the embarrassment of the administration, The chief function of the Colonial Bank being to promote practical work in Palestine, its control by persons representing an idea aiming at the concentration of our energies upon work not “practical” seemed a party advantage which practical Zionists viewed with apprehension. The latter came to ıhe Congress firmly resolved to wrest the control of the bank from the hands of the political Zionists by electing to the Board of Trus-

tees men of their own convictions.

From the very outset the practical Zionists were in the majority, and it seemed very probable that they would ists in control of the bank. Although make good their object. The debate was a very heated one. In the end, however, they compromised so that only two of their number were placed on the Board of Trustees, leaving the political Zion- the practical Zionists are to be commended for their act of compromise, an act necessitated by the desperate attitude which the politicals took, declaring that if the bank should be taken out of their hands they would resign from their activities, the inevitable result which will in all likelihood appear in the next congress, must be the control of the Colonial Bank, by a Board of Directors made up wholly of practical Zionists.

A Jewish University.

The provision for a Jewish University in Palestine made by the Eleventh Con-