TEL-AVIV

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 236, 4 September 1929, Page 2

TEL-AVIV

GREW-UP LIKE MAGIC

FROM SAND DUNE TO CITY OF 40,000 JEWS.

THE CENTRE OF ZIONISM I

The blood of any Britisher who knew Palestine would boil when he read the ignorant cablegrams from America and Poland suggesting that the British in Palestine were indifferent and inactive, says the Auckland Star. Anyone who has lived in the country knows quite well that if it were not for British protection there would not be a Jew in tho country. The Arabs are a sturdy, truculent race, and have lived a nomadic, predatory life for centuries.

Although the present trouble came to a head round th© Jews’ Wailing Place, in Jerusalem, tho real trouble between Arabs and Jews has nothing to do with religion or race. For centuries the Aloslems have been the dominant people in Palestine and in the country thev have roved at will oyer great tracts of land which are being gradually taken up as colonies since the Jews began to come in to Palestine by large numbers; that is after the war. It must be remembered that the Arabs do not go in for intensive cultivation; they merely scratch tho surface of tho ground, and therefore require more land than the same number of people wouid if they were bettor farmers. In addition to the crowds of Arabs who dwell in the scattered villages in Palestine there is a large floating population of Arabs who live in tents and move up and down the country from one pasture ground to another. . ,

When these two classes of Arabs, the village dwellers and the nomads, see more and- more land being taken up by the Jews they get more and more afraid as to their own future. The Arab is an intensely ignorant person, and though he has many good points, such as hospitality, he is credulous and terribly superstitious. He cannot see that there is room for both Jew and Arab; and he is such an Ishmael that lie cannot understand the pledge of the British to see fair play between the two races. On the other hand the feeling among some of the less well-informed Jews may be gathered from the fact that during the war, New Zealanders who were fighting on that front were asked more than once “When are the Arabs going to be driven out of the country ?” Tel-Aviv, where there has been a strong attack by Arabs, is practically a northern extension of the ancient town of Jaffa where Jonah started on his memorable journey. It was at Richon le Zion, about six miles southeast of Jaffa, on the Plain of Sharon that the first Zionist settlement was established—over 30 years ago. At first it was not a success, but the Rothschilds came to the rescue, and later the village became one of tlie largest wine growing districts in the country. There are other Zionist settlements in the vicinity, and close to Jaffa there is a large Jewish Agricultural College. . . There is no place in Palestine where such a large amount of building has been done by the Zionists as at lelAviv, which has now a population or approximately 40,000 souls, and I s the onlv town in Palestine that is Hebrew in all essentials. The place was only founded in 1909 as a garden citv for Jewish merchants and clerks who worked in Jaffa, and it was no * until after the war that it went ahead bv leaps and bounds, for in 1919 the population was only 3000. Its inhabitants come from all parts, fi e_ m such diverse countries as PolanU. tne Yemen (Arabia), Morocco- and Lithuania, and Hebrew is the sole means ot inter-communication. . The town was originally nothing more than an extension of the sanddunes found along all that part of the coas-t. The real beginning of lelAviv’s marvellous growth was in la/o when the scopo of immigration wasenlarged, and among the new type were many persons of independent means. They reannned-in Tel-Aviv as its European modernity appealed to them, and they felt at home in the purely Hebrew environment. Jaffa is rather a huddle—though a picturesque one—while. Tel-Aviv is very up-to-datt with its wide stieets, very modern buildings, its water supply and other amenities. Tel-Aviv boasts the first Jewish constabulary in the world, the Tel-Aviv Municipal Police Force consisting of iO young men all Jews. The town also floated the first Jewish municipal loan ever raised—£7s,ooo at 6* per cent, tho money being obtained m America. Tel-Aviv is the economic centre of the Jewish settlement in Palestine #nd also the central point of cultural work in the country. It has theatres, opera, libraries, cinemas, book publishing works, two daily and several weekly papers, very up-to-date schools, and is in every way a monument to Jewish enterprise and oiganisation. . ~ , , In the course of time .the big wholesale traders of Jaffa have moved into the new town,, and the result is that much of the traffic from the neighbouring villages and settlements that used to go into Jaffa now goes direct into TelAviv. There are to-day 160 industrial concerns in Tel-Aviv, and they employ over 2500 hands. The amount of money invested'in the concerns is given at £l,ooo,nod.