§14. The Jewish National Fund
The Jewish National Fund was organized with a view to develop the systematic colonization activity in Palestine. Its establishment originated at the first Zionist Congress (1897), when Professor Shapira of Heidelberg proposed that donations should be collected from Jews of all parts of the world in order to create a 'General Jewish Fund', of which two-thirds were to be devoted to the purchase of land, and one-third to its maintenance and cultivation. Such land was to be mainly rural, suitable for colonization, and never to be sold, but let only to Jews upon hereditary lease. Four years later, at the fifth Congress, a Jewish National Fund was constituted as a limited liability company, with its control vested in the Zionist Congress and its mandatories as the chosen representatives of the Jewish people. Under its memorandum and articles of association only 75 per cent. can be invested in Palestine, and the balance must be reserved in cash or realizable securities. Its bankers are the Jewish Colonial Trust, Ltd. It professes to meet the needs of three-fourths of the Jewish population of the world, i.e. about 6,000,000 in Russia, 1,000,000 in Galicia and the Bukovina, 250,000 in Rumania, 150,000 in the East of London, and 3,000,000 in the United States. These live in 'densely concentrated settlements', display an almost uniform mode of living, and speak the same tongue (Yiddish).
A quarter of the Russian Jews are artisans who are practically excluded from the factories of the country; and even where, as in Poland, Jewish business men of the middle class exist, their living is 'threatened by a boycott organized by the antochthonous population in order to displace the Jewish middle class by their own, which is still in the course of formation'. In consequence of the war, hundreds of thousands of Jews in the regions in which the war has been raging have been reduced to beggary and will be compelled to emigrate. The claim that Russia itself, once the restrictions of right of domicile are abolished, would become a sort of Paradise for the Jews is untenable, 'in the light of the fact that anti-semitism is prevalent even in the countries where there are no Jewish masses.' In the ten years after 1892 over 120,000 Galician Jews out of a population of 850,000 emigrated to America. Between 1881 and 1908 about a million and a half Russian Jews emigrated thither. Even there overcrowding and cases of much poverty and distress are found. The American Department of Labour (Bulletin, 1908) describes the position in which the Jewish domestic workers live as 'quite terrible', and states that they are condemned to work under the worst conditions.
Since 1908 many Jewish emigrants have been diverted to Palestine under the auspices of the Zionists, and it is hoped that, with a brighter future opening out for Palestine, such emigration will be largely increased. The Zionist Fund already amounts to over 12,000,000 francs, and this too is expected to be largely increased. Up to 1914 the capital of the National Fund invested in Palestine amounted to £195,000. In a second edition of a pamphlet on the Fund (No. 1 of the National Fund Library recently issued), it is stated that during the eight months of the year 1917, notwithstanding the colossal disadvantages under which it laboured, its revenue exceeded £50,000, derived as to 531,000 francs from Russia. 214,000 from North America, 18,000 from Holland, 15,000 from England, 15,000 from Canada, 14,000 from the Argentine, 40,000 from South Africa, Switzerland, Greece, East Asia, France, Sweden, Egypt, Denmark, Belgium, Australia, and Italy, and from 'other countries', presumably central Europe, 453,000 francs.[1]
- ↑ See The Jewish National Fund. by Adolf Böhm, 2nd ed. The Hague, 1917.