The Maccabaean

T the time of my visit to Palestine—it seems a long while ago now, because such momentous things have happened in the interval—those characteristic features of the life of the new Yishub which are specially associated with the younger generation were largely in suspense. The Secondary School at Tel Aviv (the “Jaffa Gymnasium”), which used to be the very life and soul of the Hebrew garden suburb, was not in being, its teachers and pupils being mostly in Samaria or out of the country, and its buildings being temporarily used as a military hospital. The Shomerin were all, or nearly all, on the Turkish side of the line. The Poalim and Poaloth were much reduced in numbers, though still sufliciently strong to count as an important factor in the life of the Colonies. But the Makkabi—an Athletic Association of young men and women —-was very much in evidence, and was rapidly recovering from the set-back which it had suffered through the war. This Association, which has inscribed on its banner a Hebrew translation of the motto mens sana in corpore sano, has done much to promote physical culture among its members, and they have reached a very high degree of efhiciency in drilling, gymnastics and sports. When General Clayton, the Chief Political Oflicer on General Allenby’s Staff, paid the Commission a visit at Tel Aviv, the Jaffa branch of the Makkabi gave a display which elicited warm commendation from him; and at the sports held on Flower Day some of them gave a remarkably fine exhibition. On all ceremonial occasions—such as the public reception of the Commission, the visit of General Allenby to the Jewish community of Jerusalem, and the triumphal return of the Sifre Torah to Jaffa—the members of the Makkabi, in their blue and white costumes, were, of course, an essential part of the picture. Soon after the Commission arrived, Lieut. Edwin Samuel became President of the Association, and undertook to assist it in obtaining equipment, particularly for open-air games. —a very desirable innovation, as physical culture among the younger generation in Palestine has hitherto taken too exclusively the form of gymnastics, and the advantages of games like football, which promote “team work” and a spirit of comradeship, have been neglected.

The Makkabi, however, has wider aims than ihe promotion of physical culture. It is a powerful nursery of the national spirit. It is very particular about Hebrew, and has created a complete Hebrew drill-vocabulary. It also educates its members in Hebrew and Jewish history. Beyond all that, it inspires in its members a very keen sense of devotion to Erez Israel. The strength of that feeling was evidenced by the fact that by far the greater number of its members volunteered for service (or auxiliary service in the case of the women) with the Allied forces in Palestine when the opportunity was given them. They felt, as young men and women in all countries have felt, that that was in the circumstances the readiest way of serving their people. In this they were at one with the agricultural workmen and workwomen. I confess to having been apprehensive lest the Yishub, so poor as yet in productive elements and so weakened by the war, might sacrifice more than it could afford to do through the loss of so many of its best young

men and women—lest positions in the country so laboriously won and so tenaciously held might be too quickly . thrown away through the enthusiasm of those who would be most needed when the work of reconstruction and extending the Jewish settlement began. It has happened elsewhere that men have been withdrawn from industries in which, as it turned out afterwards, their presence was more essential even than in the army. Be that as it may, the response of “young Palestine” to the call to arms was striking in its spontaneity and its alacrity and nobody who witnessed it could fail to see in it the same spirit which, in different circumstances, impelled the pioneers of the eighties to sacrifice and suffer so much for the national cause. Nor was this enthusiasm confined to the younger generation of the new Yishub: there were numbers of volunteers also among the yeshivah-bachurim of Jerusalem. At the same time, so far as I was able to observe, the more disagreeable symptoms of “war fever” were entirely absent from this manifestation af national ransrinnsness.

An incident which illustrates a small but characteristic difference between Erez Israel and the Galuth is associated in my mind—though rather accidentally— with the Makkabi. There is a Makkabi Association in Egypt too (I am not sure, indeed, whether Egypt or Palestine was the birthplace of the movement), and when the Commission was in Cairo the local branch gave a display. When the time came to sing Hatikvah, I noticed that all ihe men among the spectators took their hats off, and on enquiry I found that that was regarded as the natural and proper thing to do. The Englishman or the Frenchman takes his hat off when his national anthem is sung: what should the Jew do but follow suit? In Palestine, of course, nobody would think of removing his hat for Hatikvah, any more than he would bare his head on entering a Synagogue. Without wishing to make too much of this trifle, I mention it as having a suggestive value in relation to the vexed question of the place occupied by what we have got into the habit of calling “religion” in the life of ihe new Yishub. So much of the Jewish tradition of the exile works itself spontaneously into the fabrie of our new life in Palestine, that a certain continuity is quite inevitable; and while there is in Palestine, as elsewhere, a good deal of individual laxity about traditional observances, and perhaps even a certain amount of impatient opposition to them, yet the basis of life and thought is so largely “Jewish” (in the traditional sense of the term) that the outcries of some far-away critics sound like mere idle babble when one sees things at close quarters in the land itself. There is to my mind sufficient evidence that the spirit of the new Yishub can and will mould the inherited stock of ideas and observances into something at least as worthy to be called Hebraic life as the jüdischkeit of our grandfathers, and infinitely more worthy than the colorless thing which passes for Judaism among the assimilators.

The development of Hebrew folk-songs is a feature of the new life that well deserves study. These songs breathe a new note of love for the land and for the soil, and there is a gladness about them which is in contrast to the pervading melancholy of the songs of the exile.