The Maccabaean

settlements each of which is a hostage for good-will, co-operation, and broad toleration in Palestine. Even without mechanical measures these would suflice. And there are other considerations. With the Arab-speaking people, the Jews have old ties of sympathy; they are near in blood and in speech, and they have walked many a weary and not a few joyous miles of history together. There will, it is to be hoped, grow up on the borders of Palestine Arab States. These Arab States will go through a hard testing time. They are poor in material resources and poor in man power, they lack unity, and they have not a few enemies. In all these respects a Jewish Palestine will have the advantage of them. The wealth of Jewry throughout the world will be lavished upon ha hnildino un nf a Tewish Palestine - the

vast reserves of knowledge and -trained skill, of genius and of talent of the 14 million Jews of the world will be at the service of a Jewish Palestine. The Jewish people inside Palestine and outside Palestine, no matter what surface differences there may be now, will give themselves as one man to the common cause of a Jewish Palestine. In their great undertaking they will enjoy the formidable assistance of Great Britain and the sympathy and the aid of the League of Nations. A Jewish Palestine will be most anxious to give of its resources of all kinds towards the building up of an Arab civilization worthy of the noblest Arab traditions. There is in this no thought or suggestion of political or commercial gain. It springs from the Jewish desire to help a kindred people along the high road of prog- rTraas.

With the Armenian people the relations of Jewish Palestine are not so close as are their relations with the Arab States. Armenia will not border upon Palestine, and there is not likely to be any considerable Armenian element in the population of a Jewish Palestine. But it is the ardent desire of the Jews that justice be done to the national aspirations of the Armenian people. Throughout this war, as the Armenians can testify, the Jews have been ever ready to help them, and in the world after the Peace Conference they will seek to sustain these relations of friendship and co-operation. The triple chord of the Jewish, the Armenian, and the Arab peoples, which should replace the Turkish bow string, would not easily be broken. Such is the goal towards which the Jewish nation ie wnrkino in huildino un a Tewish Palestine.

The form of the modern Zionist movement took shape in Switzerland, and perhaps for this reason world-Jewry follows the progress of Zionism in Switzerland with much greater interest than would be expected from the number of its supporters in such a small country. There are other reasons which have given Zionism in Switzerland a special im- rortance. Above all, there is the extraordinary activity of Jewish students who came from Russia and Poland to study in Swiss Universities, especially in Berne, at the beginning of this century. At that time the Universities were the centre of intellectual Zionist activity, and those students play to-day an important part in the Zionist movement. Was not Dr. Chaim Weizmann a student at Geneva? It is only necessary to recall the names of Chissin, Mossinsohn, Boruchow, Bogratschoff and Jochelman (all of whom studied about the same time in Berne), to appreciate the importance of the Zionist life among the students at that time. In addition, a Zionist Federation has existed in Switzerland since the first Congress, with affliated societies in the larger cities; and events occurring in Jewish national life have always found an echo in the Swiss Zionist Federation. .

Just as the Swiss Confederation has, during the war, become the world-centre of humanitarian eflort, so also has grown the importance vf the Zionist Federation in Switzerland. The question of removing the seat of the Actions-Committee to a neutral country has, since the second year of the war, been of special interest in this country, and has led to much heated discussion. At the end of 1916 a public meeting was called to consider the question

of forming a Jewish legion to fight on the side of England, but the central committee decided to adopt a neutral attitude. During the year 1917 this committee was active only in a purely administrative form, without taking part in any political work, although the necessity of a political committee became more and more imperative, and it was for this reason that the “Theodor Herzl” Society, formed in the meantime at Zurich, played a very active political part in Swiss Zionist life. This society has worked indefatigably to prove that the interests of the Jewish people and those of the British nation are identical, and has issued a series of publications. In addition to this, the Herzl Association of Zurich held a public mass meeting on October 27th, which was largely attended also by the consuls of the Allies.. The subject of the lecture was “The Allies and the Jewish State.” It is remarkable that this meeting was held a few davs nrior to Mr. Balfour’s declaration.

The British Declaration of November 2nd, 1917, brought the political inactivity of the . central committee to an end. Enthusiasm among the Swiss Zionists was so great that from all quarters came the demand for public meetings expressing thanks to England.

On the 9ıh of May of last year the Annual Conference of the Federation was held in the Government Building, Basle.. The new committee was elected out of the ranks of the Basle Zionists, with Dr. Brunschwig, advocate, as the new President. By this time the opposition was found to have vanished, and it is probable that the Swiss Zionist Federation is now entering into a period of peaceful and fruitful work. Swiss Zionists seek the opportunity of taking an active part in the

work of re-establishing the foundation of the Jewish state in Palestine.e The fact that Zionism, after its great diplomatic successes, aow enters upon practical work, has greatly increased the number of Zionists in this country. No Zionist Conference in Switzerland has been so representative of the whole Jewish people as that held recently at Basle. The President of the Jewish community in Basle, the banker, Dreyfus-Brodsky (who is also President of the Swiss Committee Pro Causa Judaica), sympathetically welcomed the Zionists, and was present during the greater part of the proceedines.

To the Swiss Zionist Federation will probably be allotted in future several important tasks, principally in the co-operative activity of the Zionists in different countries for the neriod after the war.

The importance which Jewish life in Switzerland has won during the war is also to be remarked from the many press bureaus which have been established. In Berne there is the “Jewish Correspondence Bureau,” which principally obtains its news from the Copenhagen Bureau of the Zionist Organization; there is in Zurich a “Jewish Press Bureau,” which is intended to serve Jewish orthodox interests. In addition, there is the “Hague-Zurich Jewish Correspondence Bureau,” which acts in conjunction with the Hague Correspondence Bureau, but adopts a completely independent activity, and is connected with the “Theodor Herzl” society in Zurich.

All these undertakings receive a certain importance from the fact that it is hoped from Switzerland to influence opinion among the Jewish populations in belligerent countries.

mulated knowledge, and we need a central bureau or clearing-house which will, on the one hand, receive this information, and, on the other, distribute it through the proper channels. The bureau should, in short, act as a kind of “central,” connecting those who have a common interest in Zion with one another, so as to effect the closest co-operation between them. It should be the core of a vast circulation system of knowledge, the junction for America and Palestine. Its work does not end with its contribution of reports to be used at the Peace Conference, enormously

important as that is. Its work merely commences. For it is only as Palestine develops, economically, socially, and spiritually that we shall learn how to apply our knowledge and how to increase it.

The Zionist Organization is alive to the significance of such a centralized system; and is now shaping plans for assembling a group of experts into which the contributors to the Survey will be absorbed. The need for such a group was the reason for its initiation. Its proven worth is the primary justification for its maintenance and development.