The Maccabaean

PALESTINE

The latest report from Palestine states that Damascus, the capital of Syria, was occupied by General Allenby’s forces on Tuesday, October Ist. Damascus is one hundred and sixty miles from Jerusalem and ninety miles from the line where Allenby’s great offensive was launched on Sept. 14th. This capture opens the way to Aleppo, on the Constantinople-Bagdad Railroad, one hundred and eighty miles to the north.

An account of General Allenby’s operations in Galilee and Samaria, interpreted in terms of the Zionist colonies involved, is given by Dr. N. Syrkin elsewhere in the magazine.

Reports from the Damascus Relief Committee and other sources that have recently reached the United States regarding the districts in northern Palestine just liberated by General Allenby, show that appalling conditions existed in Galilee and Samaria while they were under Turkish occupation. The following extracts from an account written by one of the colonists speaks for itself, demonstrating that General Allenby’s brilliant victory has been a liberation indeed for the Jewish population, and bringing home to the Zionist reader the extreme necessity for funds and more funds for carrying on the work of relief and restoration in Palestine.

“The condition of the immigrants who are in Kfar Sabah has of late become exceedingly bad. -The food problem has assumed a most acute form. The authorities have forbidden all buying and selling of corn in the districts, and it is impossible to obtain wheat or flour from anywhere else. In consequence of the insufficient nourishment, and the crowding together, illness is increasing there, particularly the spotted typhus, which is nothing but hunger typhus. The death rate is going up. All feel feeble and dejected.

To our deep regret, we were obliged, at the end of the immigration year, to note a great number of dead in all places of wandering. They all leave lonely orphans behind, who are bitterly helpless. The greater part of these orphans are in Kfar Sabah.

Our help cannot be confined to the orphans of immigrants alone, but must also be extended to the orphans of all other victims of the war, of which there are so many, particularly in Safed and Tiberias. In Safed alone there are five hundred war-orphans.

The recent enormous rise in prices came upon us unaware at a moment when our resources had ‘become very small. We were not able to lay in any considerable corn stores for lack of funds. We live, so to speak, from hand to mouth, closing the month with a deficit which must be covered from the next budget, and thus we continue. We were there-

fore helpless in the face of the rise in prices during the past month, and had to pay insane prices in order to get a little corn.

It can be foreseen that next year will be no better. The harvest seems to be fairly good, but less seed has been sown and we must count on fifty or even sixty per cent of it being claimed for the use of the army. There will then remain forty per cent of the harvest for the civilian population and for sowing purposes. The prices will therefore be very high, and as the whole country is in a starving condition, there will be a rush to obtain the next crop, no matter what the prices are. Under these circumstances, we run the risk of being unable to procure for our orphans the necessary quantity of food."

At a meeting held in the square in the front synagogue at Tel-Aviv in honor of the departure of the Palestinian Legionaires who are pictured elsewhere in this issue, Dr. Weizmann, chairman of the Zionist Commission, presented the soldiers with a Sefer Torah and a flag on which was inscribed the biblical verse “B’ad Amenu V’are Elohenu,” “for our people and the cities of our God.”

~The workingmen of Palestine appear to be dealing with the problems of social and economic organization in a sane and radical spirit that augurs well for the future of the country. A co-operative buying and selling organization “Haspakah,” was recently founded in Jaffa by the agricultural workers of Judaea. Its membership is to include workingmen from all parts of Palestine. Its object is to enable Palestinian workingmen to improve their own economic condition by obtaining raw materials and food direct from the producer, eliminating the middleman on the one hand, and on the other, opening up new markets for the goods produced or manufactured in Palestine. The society has issued shares of an Egyptian Lira (about $5.00 each) all of which are to be held by the workingmen members of the Organization. The Organization is to be directed by a committee of seven, five of whom are to be elected by the general meeting of the shareholders, one by the central committee of the Union of Palestinian Workingmen, and one by the local branch of this union. Every three months the seven directors must report to the central committee of the Union of Palestinian Workingmen, and submit their books to an auditing committee of three appointed by the general committee of shareholders.

The new organization is already popular in ‘Jaffa and a great future is predicted for it. Preparations are being made to extend the work to Jerusalem, where there are a large number of Jewish workingmen.

A committee composed of representatives of the Judaean Colonies have founded an arbitration commission for the settlement of petty disputes arising in the colonies without recourse to litigation. Cases in which the efforts of the arbitration commission for an equitable and satisfactory settlement are without avail, will be carried to the higher courts in Jaffa.

A railway has now been extended through the desert from Rafa to Beersheba. On May 9th there was a formal opening of this branch. Some 30 sheikhs were taken for a ride on the train to Rafa. The run takes about an hour and a half. Colonel Parker made a little speech in which he said: “The desert which has kept us asunder is as nought. The iron road has bridged the space. May the fertile fields, too many of which, alas, this year are barren, once more be covered with the golden burden of ripening corn.” There were sports in the afternoon and ‘the programme included a race for sheiks’ horses, a camel race, Arab sword play, and boxing.

The English military authorities in Palestine are publishing a paper called “The Palestine News” which appears in English, Hebrew and Arabic. Although “The Palestine News” is issued as an army paper, it contains many items of interest concerning civilian life in the cities and colonies of Palestine.

An English Christian correspondent gives the following vivid account of the sports with which the army in Palestine occupies its spare time:

“The Palestine army seems to be making the best of its situation. The Palestine News, its organ, is largely occupied with accounts of the army’s amusements. Cricket, hunting, shooting, boxing, gymkhanas, racing, even whist drives figure among the amusements, and if one may judge from its sporting pages the army in Palestine is every whit as keen on sport as were King Richard’s men, the last time our people were here. The sound of the horn is heard near Gaza and in the Arsuf country, there are race meetings and steeple- chases, football and boxing, and a friend tells me he has already shot many kinds of game— birds such as teal, widgeon, curlew, quail, and mallard—on the plain of Sharon. Nobody, so far, has said much about pig-sticking in Palestine, a sport on which King Richard was so intent that he once rode clean into and through a Turkish ambush near Acre. Hares are seen, but I have not heard of anyone trying to stick them, although it was a fashionable sport in the time of King Rich- ard’s great grandfather, Fulke, King of Jerusalem. Before the war, I myself saw a Turk