The New Jews in Palestine.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVI, Issue 9, 30 August 1911, Page 56

The New Jews in Palestine.

The growth of the Jewish population in Palestine (as Mr Norman Bentwieh points out in the "Fortnightly Review”) is a striking phenomenon. In ISBO there were in Palestine about 30,000 Jews, who were mostly concentrated in the holy cities, who spent their time mainly in prayer and study, and who were supported by a kind' of voluntary tax paid by the Jewish communities of the dispersion for the maintenance of their brethren in the Holy Land. To-day. out of a total population of 700.000 there are nearly 100,000 Jews in the country, of whom 50.000 live at Jerusalem —where they constitute about sixty per cent of Fiie population—7.ooo at Tiberias, 8,000 at Safed, and 10,000 at Jaffa. A large parF of this urban population consists of settlers of the old type, attracted by motives of piety, subsisting with the help of charity, and devoted to religious exercises and learning. They speak the

Jargon of the Ghetto, and they bring into Palestine the conditions and outlook of the Ghetto. But during recent years a new and more vigorous element has settled in tire towns as well as on the land, immigrants who have moved their homes less from motives of piety than from a desire to be the pioneers of a full national life, who believe that "laborare est orare,” and who love the Holy Land, not alone for its past history, but also for its present and its future promise.