Mr. Isaac Weiss, a representative of the Independent Order Brith Abraham, spoke in the name of his organization. He defended the action of his grandmaster in the Congress movement, and asked for tolerance and understanding of the good motives of his leader in adopting the policy of going to the American Jewish Committee conference for the sake of peace.
Mr. Joseph Barondess spoke of the good work done by the Order Sons of Zion, of the growth of the Order, of what it had done for the Emergency Fund and for the National Fund.
Miss Henrietta Szold, chairmann of the Central Committee of Hadassah, presented a report for her organization, in which she said:
HADASSAH REPORT
The representative of an organization detailed to report what its progress during a stated period has been, finds it so difficult to resist the temptation to over-statement, that when the duty of putting the Hadassah record since the Boston Convention before this assemblage was laid upon me, I determined to make of myself a voice, and nothing besides—a human phonograph. Insofar as possible, I shall clothe my statements in figures and leave the interpretation to you.
At the Boston Convention Hadassah numbered fifteen organizations, with nearly eleven hundred members. We have come to Philadelphia twenty-six strong, and this very day a charter is being issued to a new Chapter in Los Angeles, which we shall remember as the Philadelphia Convention Chapter, making the twenty-seventh link in our chain, and raising our membership to one thousand ‚eight hundred and seventy-five regular members, for all except thirty-two of whom the Shekel Tax and the Federation Tax have been vaid in full.
In the fiscal year 1915, our Chapters remitted to us in Palestine contributions, being fifty per cent. of the dues, the sum of $1,743.59. This should be compared with the receipts during the Convention year, or from July, 1915, to July, 1916, which were $2,880.46; or still better they should be compared with the receipts from the same source during the first half of 1916, which amounts to $2,197.73. In other words, if our Chapters fulfill the promise made by the first half of the current fiscal year in the second half ‚we shall have derived from them $2,500 more than last year, or a larger sum by $800 than the receipts for the whole vear 1016.
Again, during the Convention period, 1915-1916, there was remitted through and by Hadassah the sum of $12,471.74 to the Emergency Fund of the Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs, nearly two thousand dollars more than in the previous Convention period. This at least is the sum known to have been remitted through Hadassah. Since meeting some of the delegates from distant Chapters, it has appeared that sums due to the effort of Hadassah have not yet been credited to our organization.
Hadassah has co-operated in raising these funds as well as the moneys for the National Fund with the other local Zionist organizations in each city. Especially in those places and sections in which the Provisional Committee has established Bureaus, or the Federation has brought about a city organization, Hadassah has taken its due place in the performance of Zionist duties by the side of other organizations.
During the year there have been issued by Hadassah monthly Bulletins at regular intervals devoted wholly to the interests of the orranization as such.
Of the sum remitted to the Emergency Fund, $4,800 represents the budget of Hadassah in Palestine and Alexandria. Though our two American representatives were for personal reasons compelled to return to this country, the tasks we undertook in Jerusalem have been neither interrupted nor diminished. In point of fact, our Palestinian activities have from certain points of view been enlarged. The trachoma work is now being done in twenty schools instead of eighteen, the new schools being the Hungarian Talmud Torah and the Tachkemoni School. The percentage of trachoma among the 3,516 children in January was 12.38% as compared with 14.60% in January, 1015, and over 20% in January, 1914. If
the new schools, in which the percentages are as high as 25 and 19% are eliminated, the percentage would be only 11.78%. Those who are acquainted with conditions in the East will appreciate what the diminished percentages of trachoma among school children mean. No higher tribute can be paid to our nurses than to mention the fact that when they left Palestine, the work they had undertaken was so perfectly systamatized, that it could be carried on without them. In Doctor Bertha Kagan, a young woman physician, they found a successor who emulates their example from the point of view of organization as well as technical skill. She super- vises the work of six midwives, and reported in the month of January thirty-two cases and in the month of February thirty-four cases. Since then the censor has refused to let us have the information which we are confident Doctor Kapan has forwarded to us.
In view of the fact that the departure of our nurses deprived the population of the comfort of their visits, Doctor Kagan advised us to establish a Polyclinic for women and children. This was done, the work was inaugurated on January 24. During February Doctor Kagan treated three hundred and seventy-eight patients in the new Polyclinic. At the urgent advice of Mr. Louis H. Levin, the manager of the Vulcan expedition, Hadassah undertook to furnish a nurse’s care to the Palestinian refugees in Alexandria. Mr. William C. Hornblower, the Director of the Refugee’s Encampments, writes in terms of highest praise of the change that has taken place in the health and cleanlihess of the refugees since Miss Kaplan’s arrival in Alexandria, the same Miss Kaplan who was our chief nurse in Jerusalem and who could not but heed the call of the East when she was made to hear it. I may say parenthetically that Miss Landy, our second nurse, longs with equal ardor to return to her pioneer task in Jerusalem.
At present Hadassah is engaged in still further expanding its work. It was understood that no enlargement of the work should take place during the war period, unless specific funds for the purpose could be secured. Such funds have come to us from the Chicago Palestine Welfare Committee in the amount of $roo monthly. This enables us to duplicate the Jerusalem maternity work in Jaffa and the nearby Judean colonies. Nothing can better illustrate the sore stress in which the new Yishub finds itself in these gloomy days than the fact that Jaffa, the proud, the independent, the type of the new settlement has had to resort to outside help for its elementarv work.
When Miss Landy returned from Palestine she brought us a message from Frau Doktor Thon indicating that Hadassah's help was needed in Jaffa, as it had been in Jerusalem, and through the generosity and devotion of the Chicago Palestine Welfare Committee, we are in a position to respond.
A similar association, the Palestine Welfare Committee of Pittsburgh, has enabled us by a gift of $500 to enlarge our fund for medicines and goods which we have been remitting regularly to Doctor Ticho and Doctor Kagan, to use for the benefit of their patients. Doctor Ticho never fails to remind us that nothing is more conducive to the spread of trachoma than the malnutrition of children, malnutrition which in these days has become a euphemism for starvation.
As in all human affairs, so in Hadassah there remains a residue that cannot be expressed in statistics. Hadassah is not an abstract organization, but a living, glowing personality, throbbing with the emotion and sympathy of her queenly namesake. Go from Chapter to Chapter in Hadassah and see how the number of workers has grown. But listen to what the workers have to say regarding Hadassah's influence upon their own lives. If it were proper to become personal, I might mention to you a dozen who have told me that Hadassah constitutes their happiness, has given content to their Jewish life, has awakened them from the apathy into which they have fallen.
Dr. David de Sola Pool, president of Young Judaea, then reported for his organization. He said: