We Young Palestinians
To the Jewish Youth of America
THERE is a voice calling from afar, young and strong, fresh and vigorous; and you, the Jewish youth of free America, lend us your ears, if only for a moment, and hearken to the message of this ringing voice. For, although it calls from the far away East, and although some of you will not grasp immediately its true meaning, yet it is a voice not wholly unknown to you.
For it is the voice of your brethren, the voice of the younger generation of modern Palestine, which echoes from mountains as lofty as Hermon, which fords torrents as mighty as the Jordan, which leaps over valleys as fertile as Sharon, which sweeps over vast seas as the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, until it reaches the shores of America, America the happy and the prosperous.
It is the voice of your brethren, which has burst from that very land so dear and so cherished to each Hebrew heart, the land which was once the possession of your renowned forefathers, and which a new generation, proud and resolute, is striving to make the land of the Jewish people in the not far distant future.
Surely you know it now, that voice of young Zion, that voice of new Canaan.
For after all you also are Jews. If you were to respond to this appealing voice, which brings you a hearty greeting, a resounding and oriental "Shalom"; if only you were to lay aside your daily interests for a little while; if you were—no, not
to travel to Canaan, for the hour has not yet struck—if you were to let your fancy fly towards the Hebrew Orient,
fly and wander to and fro throughout the country, for at least a few days, then indeed you would be amazed at the panorama which unfolded itself before you. In all the principal cities, from Beer-Sheba in the south to Sidon in the north, and in the forty-seven Jewish colonies, from Ruchamah in the desert of Idumaea as far as Metulah in the crags of Upper Galilee, there you would find a hundred and fifty thousand Jews who are courageously continuing the life of the ancient nation. After the destruction of the land at the hand of the Roman Emperor Titus, and after two thousand years of black and bitter exile for the great majority of the people of Israel, this is perhaps the greatest event in the history of our people, — that history which is already so rich in incidents of tremendous import. Babylon and Egypt, Assyria and Persia, ancient Greece and mighty Rome have passed from the
face of the earth, they who believed that they had completely annihilated this, our little nation,—but they were mistaken; for, to this very day, this same nation still exists on the same consecrated soil.