Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

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M A S M I D those Arabs who desire to leave Palestine should be made feasible. The 1922 Greco- Turkish exchange of population can be worked out again in a better manner, to help those Arabs who desire to settle en masse in their native and holy land, Saudi Arabia. A huge international loan should be floated to carry out the settlement of Jews on those lands to be bought from the Arabs, All adverse legislation aimed against Jewish interests are to be removed. In brief the great powers must be made to recognize the fact that a Jewish Palestine, an Eretz Yisrael, is not a solu- tion for ameliorating Jewish hardships and struggles in the lands of their exile — rather it is the only solution for the Jewish people. The past twenty years have been a period of great importance for world Jewry. The great Jewish centers hove been weak- ened or destroyed. The inroads of assimi- lation have been great, especially in the new center in America. Only Eretz Yisrael has created an auto-emancipated Jewry which has returned to recreate its former grandeur. It is there that our hope lies. The Jew has been used to seeing things in the last century from the geo-political viewpoint. Today grim reality has knocked at his door and he finds himself the object of the greatest mass-extermination scheme. This is a definite war aim of the axis powers. Reality tells him that he can have little hope for a future unless he concen- trates his energies on one thing — self- preservation as a group based on our past culture. As a writer so well put it, Jews hove been benumned by the fear of anti- Semitism and are so overwhelmed by the line-up of forces against them that many of them are incapable of taking a vigorous stand on anything. ' ' We find the orthodo c few pessimistic and the assimilated one optimistic. American Jewry can become the de- cisive force if it but heeds the words of such messengers from Palestine Jewry as Rabbi Berlin and Moshe Shertok. They have brought word that in spite of every- thing the Yishuv stands firm. In actuality it acts and functions as a semi-autonomous group. Even in the face of the nearing Nazi forces they stood up firm and resolute. American Jewry can only help them if it becomes one solid body of united opinion and demands our right to a Jewish state in Palestine. For an era of Eretz Yisrael will see not only the mundane success of a people but a spiritual revival in the only land where the full life in the spirit of the Torah can exist. 13) Political and Cultural Aspects of Jewish Post-War Problems, by A. Duker. op. cit. T oenty-nine

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M A S M I D Anyone who has watched the development of the national states in the Near East on the basis of nationalism, Europeanization, and religious reform can only compare them to the policy of the Mandatory power in Palestine. No attention has been paid to the wishes of the population. . . the Man- dato ry government admitting this in its re- ports for 1932. The government was actu- ally charged with the deliberate policy of keeping the Arab population in a state of illiteracy. ' - ' All this while — even in de- pression years — a surplus existed in the treasury. It perhaps would be better to class Palestine as a colony , as we can see from the abortive attempts to do so in the black papers of 1938, ' 39. Today, after four years of a war which has drenched humanity in a welter of blood, we hear cries of a people ' s war and we see, as in the Battle of England, a firm faith in the will and ability of a people to live. This show of spirit, be it in England, France or China, has led many to think that the millennium as far as social justice is con- cerned has come. We are still far from a sol ution, for a reconstructed world based on the four freedoms can only come with the leaders to carry them out. We can well recall how we were disappointed in the inability of the Labor government in the early 30 ' s to even budge colonial pol- icy. From the purely subjective viewpoint as Jews, we have only heard as yet a con- tinuation of the status quo in Palestine — the 1939 Black paper. In addition to the mass-killings in Europe we have to hear of Struma and Patria tragedies. This is the reality that we must face. What program can we Jews take in the immediate future to carry out our goal in the post-war world? Very few suggestions 11) Western Civilization in the Neco- East, by Hans Kohn. Columbia University Press, 1936, p. 92. 12) Ibid, p. 105. cover the subject or are foolproof. But on the basis of real istic appraisal the following seems worthwhile to think about. At the forthcoming peace conference it seems best for Jews and Arabs to put forth their claims before an impartial commission concerning the economic capacity of Pales- tine. For politically and legally the Arabs can have no claim, and the Jews need rec- ognize none. The Balfour Declaration and the Mandate did away with such a pos- sibility of Arab legal claims. This com- mission will sift, weigh and check the evi- dence without English interference, which in the past has proved biased and harmful after each wave of terror perpetrated by the Arabs. Public opinion must be aroused to demand this of England in order finally to do justice to the Jew against whom the most horrible crimes have been committed. Arab claims to independence in other areas, such as Syria, ought to be supported by the Jew. The Arabs deserve a land which is clearly Moslem by tradition and fact. However, Palestine ' s independence must not be made contingent on that of Syria ' s or any Arab state. The point must be made in accordance with the Weiz- mcmn-Faisal agreement of January, 1919, that, while Arab nationalists like King Faisal have recognized a Jewish State at one time, no Jewish nationalists have ever recognized an Arab Palestine as even a remote pos- sibility. Unparalleled waves of Jewish immigra- tion into Palestine are to be demanded as the only possible humanitarian act to aid the Jews of Europe. It is important to make Palestinian Arabs aware that Economic conditions in Palestine are by now so close- ly bound with Jewish immigration that Arabs would lie faced with the prospect of eco- nomic hardship if immigration be closed (Partition Report, p. 43). Under control and support of the great powers emigration of Twenty-eight

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Dke R eauerd by JEROME BOBBINS flN EVENT which did not receive the recognition it should hcfve in the dcdly press occurred some time ago in the animal world. I think it only fair to report in de- tail on this matter which is or is not im- portant depending upon your point of view. . . . It seems that long ago there was only one type of Beaver — the Scudges . All worked hard, took only a moment or two off every few hours to rest, and then con- tinued with their duties, building dams, changing the course of rivers, and gnawing down trees foolishly placed in their way by silly men. Everything went along nicely until a few of them began to see how futile it all was and gradually decided not to work at all. These lazy ones — they were called Jivs by the Scudges — who got away with as much work as possible, were scorned and disliked by the hard workers. One day, a Scudge got into on argument with a Jiv, and chased him out of the woods. He was a silly Scudge, young and headstrong. When his fellow Scudges criti-. cized him for wasting his time on a lazy Jiv, he said, 1 don ' t understand why we Scudges allow a Jiv to sit around and do nothing while we do all the work. He eats the same as we do, and sleeps in our palatial mud homes, but he doesn ' t deserve to, I think. The other Scudges, older and wiser, of course laughed at this silly young fellow and his foolish talk. A few more Scudges reported casually, as time passed, that they too had quarreled with Jivs who were insolent and spent their days lying on their backs and getting sunburned. What follows now I didn ' t get quite clearly from the one who told me the entire affair, but it seems that somehow the beav- ers suddenly became convinced that they needed some sort of system — they were working aimlessly, they were told, and needed some efficient planning. It came about like this — It seems that the Jivs, in order to pro- tect their honor, got together and formed a Mutual Aid Society. Then they approached Scudge 1 who had nothing whatever to do because of his elevated position as King of the Beavers. Well, they went to work on him with flattering words, and by good use of their persuasive tongues — you ' d never think beavers were such talkers, to look at them — they put a bug into his ear. After careful deliberation. Scudge I realized that he needed such an honest, sincere, patriotic group as the Jivs to help him with his laborious work for the betterment of Becrverdom. Why, he needed them for plorming out further expansion of the Beav- er empire, figuring out the size of dams, the number of trees to be cut down, and scores of other things which no one had even thought of before. Foolish Scudges, to be working aimlessly without definite plans and never coming to him with a plan like this. . . . Anyway, one morning the Scudges awoke and found that the Jivs were now to be called Sir Scudge, the name Jiv was outlawed, and the Scudges were to follow out the plans and instructions laid out by all the Sir Scudges, as seen fit by the infinite wisdom of Scudge 1. The Scudges were amazed. They just couldn ' t realize the benefit to themselves and to the cause of Beaverdom in general of this new system. They couldn ' t under- stand at first how much more work would Thirty