The Maccabaean

ON August first the Zionist organization of America made the following public announcement:

"The Zionist Organization of America has received a cablegram announcing the safe arrival in Palestine of the first and second contingents of the American Jewish Legion. These contingents were recruited during March and April and have since been in training at Windsor, Canada, and at Egg Buckland, near Plymouth, England. They will join up with the Jewish Regiment which was recruited in London and which is already on the firing line north of Jaffa, Palestine."

The stay of these contingents in England, the touching receptions and attentions which they received from all classes of the Jewish population as well as the exalted feelings which their experiences evoked in the young idealist soldiers themselves, are recorded in a series of remarkable letters and articles which have reached the editor of THE MACCABAEAN. Nothing like a reading of these memoirs and musings will bring home the new spirit of inspiration and consecration, the spirit which must have moved the Maccabaeans of old and which now is again the driving force of themodern Maccabaeans.

At a reception given by Mr. Balfour to the

American Zionist Medical Unit, Mr. Sokolow, in response to Mr. Balfour's speech, stated that he had spoken that day with the officer in command of the American Judaeans, who had recently been inspected by the Commander-in-Chief of the Southern Command. The Commander-in-Chief had said that he had never set eyes upon a finer set of men or men who were more inspired with devotion to a great ideal.

Even the location of their encampment seemed to have been chosen to harmonize with the exalted spirit of our soldiers. This is how this location is described by one of them:

"It is impossible to describe the multiplicity of splendour, of the undulating country of which our encampment, more than a quarter of a mile long, is but an insignificant section. Situated on a high tableland and surrounded by high hills we can see the valleys, and turning country lanes in all directions, whilst on occasions, we catch a glimmer of the sea or is it only a reflection of it? The vast panorama of green is here and there varied by the gray steeple of a village church and mud colored cottages, and by the white walls of a lime quarry hewn out of a mountain side.

"Nor can there be any greater joy than to lie on one's

back the whole summer evening long and see the different shades which our camp takes on as the concentrated white light of the sun diffuses itself into a softer orange and then into colder purple tint. What pleasant reminiscences of old days in the States, and of childhood in Russia whilst the sun still remains hanging above the horizon, a lifeless painted ball. Yes, this scene so much beloved by the Palestinians amongst us because it is so much like their native surroundings, is one in which Shevuoth can be celebrated. Here we all feel with our Colonel that we are living under conditions which the generation of Moses has inscribed in the Torah. Here is a proper training ground for those about to go up to conquer the land."

All classes of the Jewish population of London, not even excluding the "assimilationist" West Enders, vied with each other in welcoming the soldiers.

"We are becoming not only popular but even fashionable," writes one of them. The Shevuoth celebration is described in epic and idyllic terms. The day was concluded with a meeting of the Hebrew speaking Society, to which only speakers of Hebrew were invited. The description of this meeting follows:

"Varied, indeed, were the speeches. One told of a Shevuoth gathering of agricultural students

in California, another of a celebration on Mt. Hermon. A member of the Zion Mule Corps spoke of Gallipoli and the first shelling of their camp on Shevuoth lekovod Hahag. A Varsity man spoke of Cambridge and days of study and good fellowship.

"As the evening grew on the meeting ended with the singing of popular Hebrew songs, such songs, songs of the plough and the harvest redolent with the fresh air from which they spring.

"The meeting came to an end, but not so the holiday mood. Shevuoth must be celebrated by night as well as by day. Out with the mattress and the blankets! Out for the night under the moonlit sky. At first, the exhilaration of the novel experience. Later, the quiet. Then we laid plans for after the war—after the war when Judaea would be ours. This one would join the Civil Service, that one would introduce American farming methods into the land, still another wondered as to his chances of getting a lectureship in the Jerusalem University.

"Dreams, dreams of trenches, of throwing hand grenades, of bayonetting the enemy, dreams showed the task in front of us. For are we not still in Golus?"