The Maccabaean

THE MEDICAL UNIT

WHEN last June the urgent message came to the Provisional Committee from the Inner Actions Comite, asking that a Medical Unit be sent from America to Palestine, it was natural that Hadassah, with its record of nursing work, should be called upon by the Zionist Organization to shoulder this task. Hadassah accepted the twofold responsibility of organizing the personnel and equipment of the unit and of raising the necessary funds. Heretofore, since the beginning of the war, Hadassah had collected thousands of dollars over and above its own budget for the

Emergency Fund of the Provisional Committee. Henceforth all moneys raised by Hadassah are to go to the Medical Unit. The first estimate for initial expense was $25,000. Now, with the rise of prices in Turkey, it has risen to $75,000. The. ur-- gent call came in June because typhus and cholera had broken out in Palestine. Hospitals were closed for lack of funds and medicines, and physicians of fofeign allegiance had been called to their respective colors. Week by week news came of the death of native physicians due to the epi-. demic-they were fighting. Almost no physicians are left; the report comes that in Jaffa, a city of 40,000, which formerly had twenty physicians, there are now only four physicians. Yet not until about two months ago did it become possible for Hadassah to make propaganda or interview persons for the Unit, because only then did the State Department of our Government at. Washington complete for us the necessary diplomatic negotiations. The time and manner of our Unit entering Palestine are still at the mercy of military conditions. It has been decided to send at least ten physicians and probably ten nurses. The Medical Advisory Board that will pass upon all applicants consists of Dr. Harry Friedenwald, Chairman; Drs. Isaac A. Abt, Isaac Adler, Emanuel Libman, Milton J. Rosenau and Miss Lillian D. Wald. Medicines must be sent in immense quantities, for there are not any in the land, and it is understood that enough must be sent with the Unit to last until the end of the war. As for funds, somewhat more than: 0 have so far been raised through the efforts of individuals and chapters of Hadasash. The work has‘only begun. But from one

MONEY AND IDEAS

MONEY is the symbol of ideas as truly as is speech. “In the beginning,” Herzl said, “was the idea.” But it is by its fiscal arrangements that a society expresses itself. Note the difference between general Jewish relief and Zionist relief, Whereas the former is philanthropy, Zionism is philanthropy permeated by an idea. “Philanthropy to a whole people,” said Herzl, “is politics.” That large vision has kept Hadassah clear-minded in the matter of finance. We aim not to drain the organization’s resources. We hope some day to depend not upon spasmodic begging but only upon strong organization. For we would keep the balance between the organization and its achievements, to strengthen the one by strengthening the other. It is a high aim, dependent for its realization on a large, democratic and intelligent membership. This outlook has also determined Hadassah’s attitude toward the Jewish National Fund, which is especially dear to us. We hope finally to eliminate all picayune and undignified methods of collection, such as street selling, and especially such methods as might be harmful to our young people, our most precious capital. Besides divers other methods of service, we have made it incumbent upon the officers of our chapters to use the National Fund stamp and to encourage the distribution of National Fund boxes. We wish there might be found some more direct method of taxing each of our members for the National Fund, that our membership might become large enough to warrant our deducting a regular percentage of our dues for that purpose. For we believe that the most dignified and also the surest method of raising funds for the Jewish National Fund—and the one most in harmony with the democratic and large political vision of Herzl— is the system of regular self-taxation for the treasury of the whole Jewish people.

THE WOMAN IN ZIONISM

HADASSAH is the woman in Zionism. That is our quality and our character. The principles we have laid down for ourselves are the principles of womanliness translated into terms of public service. But public service does not necessarily mean publicity. The aversion to unnecessary notoriety for individuals, the avoidance of the publication of photographs and the glorification of names, is in line with democratic development, but it is also essentially feminine. Buckle, in an essay on “The Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge,” speaks of the saving quality of idealism in woman, which is peculiarly

kind of Jew, the Zionist, we should not need to solicit funds. Every Zionist should feel bound to contribute to the Medical Unit that is to be sent to Palestine, as his Gentile neighbors have contributed to the Red Cross. It is true we can appeal to all Jews. But ultimately the burden is ours and it is we that must carry it.

needed in this age of inductive philosophy. The deductive method he calls the ideal method. The danger of too much induction, too much practical, empirical reasoning, is that we shall see things only in the small, in such sections as our limited sight can grasp. Woman has vision always, as well as sight; she is the natural deductive philosopher because of her imagination and insight, which help her to see life as a whole. She generalizes from experience. It is true that women are more minutely practical than men, with an eye constantly alert to detail, because they are kept close to the facts of life, birth and bread and shelter and disease. That is one reason why they are idealists, for it is a mistake to think that the practical and ideal conflict. Idealism is the capacity to see large, to see the whole, and to regulate life according to that vision. Woman, with the constant call to sacrifice, the constant.need for performing small and uninteresting acts, must see the whole to justify the part. In all national movements there have been’ especially women who have seen the big ideal, who have struggled, suffered, died for it. In our own history, in the struggles for early nationalization, one woman stands forth as proclaiming national unity when no man had yet seen the big idea. Deborah was the first of the Judges to call upon all Israel for service, to reproach those tribes that failed to meet the obligation and answer the rallying cry of the nation as a whole. Hadassah therefore in insisting in and out of season upon our ultimate aim, in holding to the national vision and the big national way of doing things, is acting only the woman’s part. So too in constantly dealing with practical details, in insistence upon the 66655107 of a peg for the ideal, a

specific piece of work well done, she is acting only in accordance with her age-long habits, and like all women she is often misunderstood. But her business is not self-explanation. Working side by side with her brothers in every Zionist field, she still knows that by sometimes working with her sisters alone, she will help weave that fabric of ideals, that sheltering tent which shall at last cover all our differences, all our mistakes, all our necessary conflicts under the unity of national vision.