The Maccabaean

N reviewing Californian Jewry historically, it is pleasant to observe that no one knows whether any Jews settled or visited there before 1848, and if they did, who they were; so I am spared boasting with that curious chauvinistic erudition, native to the Jewish historian, that the second governor of the province or the founder of the third mission or the cabin-boy on Captain Drake’s “Golden Hind” was a Jew. The first Alcalde of San Francisco was born of a Carolinian Jewess—this to satisfy anyone fearing that the Jews did not help to settle the pre-American west. And Bret Harte’s grandfather was a Jew. With the advent of 1849, however, the history of Jewish communal life west of the Rockies unquestionably begins—from the year of gold on, the Jew as miner, trader, builder, financier, and all the rest, answered the call of the pioneer and went over the ranges to help create the wonderful man-made. land. California.

BAN AY 1 60% EEA VU 211\1\,1 1041 1114011 ALANA y 16111\1 NV GALES LLG In the fact that California is a man-made land lies, if anywhere, the peculiar significance of Californian Jewry to Zionism. If anyone asks us if we know the land of citrons and almonds, the land where the golden orange blooms, we Easterners say, “Certainly—California.” If we are asked where is the Paradise of wines and flowers, palm-trees, happy homes, and plenty, we make the same reply. What we Easterners do not usually realize is that California is an Eden toward which God contributed little save the scenery and the climate. (And the climate is not particularly a success.) The oranges and the palms, the vines and the flowers, the eucalyptus and the walnut, the apricot and the almonds were ail cultivated and developed to their present proportions by man. When the Spaniards came to Los Angeles, it was a wilderness; and if Drake had thought of applying a descriptive instead of a patriotic title to the bare hills of the West Coast, he would not have called them New Albion—but, perhaps, New Palestine. Southern California, in particular, is a Palestine in the quality of the soil, the absence of a natural wealth of vegetation, and in its warm climate with seasonal rains. The man who doubts what can be done with Palestine economically should be given a week’s vacation in the Imperial Valley—which has rightly enough been dubbed a natural hot-house.

The same doubter who, convinced of the possibilities of a land like Palestine, mistrusts the Jews’ ability to realize these agricultural prospects should then be introduced to Californian Jewry. There are Jews here who, if they so desired, could probably solve every problem in connection with the development of Palestinian resources, and who could engineer such a development for the very good reason that they have already done so—in California. First, as to irrigation, so vital in big-scale production, a banking firm of San Francisco could answer any questions and answer for any results. In the ensuing horticulture, any one of a dozen Jewish firms could create a fruit industry, for they almost dominate one—in California. Having our fruit, how should it be packed and marketed?—the Jewish packers of the West Coast could tell us; in fact, “the great California Fruit Canners Association,” to quote Dr. Martin A. Meyer,* “is to a large extent a

* "Western Jewry: an Account of the Achievements of the Jew and Judaism in California." Introduction by Dr. Martin A. Meyer. San Francisco, 1916.

‘Jewish’ corporation.” The development of hydro-electric power ?—ask still other Pacific Coast Jews who have won vast fortunes in this field. Cattle?—there is a Bakersfield Jew known today as the cattle-king of California. Yet another Jewish firm could organize your wool industry ; and a third your tobacco. Indeed, the relation of the Californian Jew to agriculture is expressible in the career of David Lubin of Sacramento, later the founder and first president of the International Agriculture Institute at Rome. Probably to a greater extent than in any other section of the country, the Jew in California leads in the dominating interest and industries of that section— and, curiously enough, this section and its industries in no remote way resemble Palestine.

Palestine, it should be said, recognizes that California is a splendid training-school for its sons and their problems; and, accordingly, a number of Palestinian young men are studying in the University of California, or are working on the farms and in the orchards, or have secured positions in the fruit-marketing establishments. A Palestinian Jew, graduate of the Jaffa Gymnasium applied this year for admission in the University of California’s Agricultural School, and he was matriculated solely upon the recognition of his Hebrew diploma. Other young Jews, Russians, are studying at Berkeley with the intention of eventually going to Palestine. In 1912 the Jewish colonists of Palestine sent a delegate, a graduate of a horticultural school, to California (as well as to Texas and Florida) in order to study agricultural methods. The presence of these students in and about the large centers have had a perceptible effect upon the Jewish communities—they have represented Palestine in the flesh, and they have made its possibilities somewhat of a reality—and not an uninviting one. The souls of these Palestinians are straight and their feet stand firm upon the ground. They have gained in Palestine the choicest prize American life can offer—self-reliance and self-respect; without paying the American price of losing their Jewishness. Of course not all the Jews of San Francisco or Los Angeles have met these men; but nearly all have heard in a general way of their presence and their qualities; and when the subject of Zionism is introduced to an intelligent Californian Jew, he seldom inquires how one can make a desert bloom, for he knows how; he seldom propounds the worn riddle, How can Jewishness be more than religiousness? for he has met Jewishness that is more than that; he seldom thinks of Palestine as the beggardom of old Jewry, for he has seen the new Jew, and has spoken with him. These students are bringing home the new values of Palestine to the West Coast Jew, just as Palestine will one day bring home the values of the Jew to the world.

Another element of equal educational value and tinged with equal romanticism are the Russian refugees from the trenches, who number about fifty in San Francisco. For the most part, they are young men who entered the war determined to defend a dubitable fatherland, but who finally revolted from the sheer horror of the situation of the Jew in the army and in the war-zones. One young Jew who fought through the two Carpathian campaigns fled after being compelled to take part with his regiment in a program in