DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Chronicle

From Rome's Ghetto
To Jordan Valle y

ing of its soil.
And now here they are in Dag-
ania, in the Jordan Valley, going
, through a further period of train-
ing to prepare themselves for
came from the kind of home that their ultimate settlement on a
the American soldier wrote stretch of National Fund land of
about. Others came from poor their own. For the present they
homes in the Roman ghetto. But live and work as a self-contained
all completed their secondary- group. They have their own quar-
ters and in a loft above one of
school education.
the barns they have a clubhouse.
Not all went through equally
But they are in constant touch
hard times during the war years,
with the permanent settlers of
although the lowest common de-
Dagania, especially the local
nominator of hardship was high
youth. Besides their contacts in
enough. The poisonous pall of
the village itself, the youth of
Nazi anti-Semitism and its Italian
Dagania have constituted them-
Fascist copy hung low over all
selves the guides of the "Italkim"
of them. A few will also tell you
in the geography, flora and fauna
that although they lived in beauti-
of the Jordan Valley.
ful homes, that were unscathed
by shells, there were periods
when they faced the grim spectre
of starvation.
Some of them fought as Parti-
ISRAEL GOLDSTEIN
sans in Florence. They take their By DR.
proud place together with other President, Zionist Organization
of America
young halutzim from Europe who
fought with Tito's Partisans in
Half a century ago Theodor
Yugoslavia or the Maquis in
Herzl led the march of Israel
France.
toward freedom and statehood.
Not all are Italian-born. Some The vision encompassed a free
were refugees from Poland or nation of Jews built upon the re-
claimed wastes of the ancestral
Germany who found their way to homeland, Palestine. He and his
Italy in the pre-war years. It is fellow "Dreamers" envisioned
years since most of them last Jewry brought home from exile,
heard from their families. In a free of humiliation and tyranny
few cases all trace of their near
ones was lost. In others the
Le Shono Toro Tikosevu
tracks led to Lublin.
The ideal of ALIYAH to Eretz
Israel brought them together, in
the wider sense, in Italy. But the
instrument that welded them to-
gether was Hechalutz, aided by
soldiers from the Palestine-Jew-
ish units. It was they who helped
organize their hachshara farm,
9150 Russell St.
who helped train them and to
TO. 8.3260
crystalize their knowledge of the
realities of Palestine and pioneer-

HOW THE REFUGEES STRIKE ROOT
IN THE SOIL OF JEWISH PALESTINE

BY A. ARZI

"It wasn't easy," wrote an
American soldier from some-
where in Italy, "to reconcile a
discussion of the rugged life in
a Palestine settlement with the
stately effects of that luxurious
study, with its soft crimson rugs,
its richly-curved mahogany desk,
and the large brown-and-tan
cushioned seats that were
sprawled about the room. It was
even more difficult to believe that
the participants in this plan to
leave soon for Palestine were the
two vivacious sisters with whom
I sat talking in these elegant sur-
roundings of the family study."
That was nearly a year ago.
If that American soldier were to
drop in on Palestine today he
would see one of those Senoritas
leading the rugged life which he
found it so difficult to reconcile
with her background. For, to-
gether with 34 other young Ital-
ian Jews, she is now in Dagania.
The group has been here since
March. Although the average age
is about 20, with the youngest 17
and the oldest 25, some have
been trying to get to Palestine
since 1939. In that year a few
of them were already under-
going training on a hachshara
farm in Central Italy. But others
discovered the Zionist idea for
themselves only in the hard school
of the war years. Together they
spent a half-year at work on a
hachshara farm which they called
"Lanegeb," near Rome.
Most of them came from an as-
similated background. Yet with
Zionism they have won a new-
found devotion to orthodox ob-
servance. In Dagania they asked
for and obtained their own kosher
kitchen. They have their daily
prayer services. That is a feature
common to the majority of Italian
halutzim who arrived in recent
years. One group joined up with
the orthodox Hapoel Hamizrahi
settlement at Sde Eliyahu.
They hail originally from dif-
ferent kinds of homes in differ-
ent parts of Italy. Some were
University students; there are
students of engineering, law and
literature among them. Some

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Rosh Hashonah
Greetings

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To All Detroit
Jewry

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They fall, and they alone, who
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—Clarence Tinny.

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Rosh Hashonah Greetings

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Rosh Hashonah Greetings

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Greetings

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ri

the Jewish people in
i an unfitvii i•.
able light.
JEWS STATELESS
The supreme importance of rec-
ognition of Palestine as a fere
and independent Jewish Common-
wealth has been most for c ibl y
demonstrated at the San Fran ..
cisco Conference. Jewry, first and
most grievously injured victim of
Nazi aggression, is without a
voice in the councils which are
to reconstruct the devastated
world—the Jews are still staaten.
los. Once more the validity of
Herzl's concept, is proven. It is
not enough to colonize, to reclaim,
to build. Full statehood must he
achieved if the problem of j ew .
:sh homelesness is to be mm-
manently solved.
The task of American Zionism
is the removal of that hanky.
The great majority of Ameri can
Jews have no fear that devotion
to the safety of their brothers
will in any way endanger their
own peace, or reflect on their
loyalty to Americaln and its
ideals.
Herzl's position was to him a
sacred trust to be used in the aid
of his less fortunate brethren.
We here in America have the
duty to carry on until success has
been achieved.

GRAYSON'S

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A Happy New Year To All!

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of alien lands. Almost, it seemed,
they looked ahead and saw the
obverse of the medal of victory—
the graven staatenlos that in the
last decade has come to symbolize
the defenseless, persecuted and
massacred Jews of Hitler's Eur-
ope—staatenlos, disowned, impo-
tent, cast forth destitute upon
the doubtful charity of a world
engrossed in its own struggles
against the fascist ideology.
But for that day Herzl and his
aides had prepared a heaven. The
great Zionist movement of mod-
ern days for which they laid the
groundwork has gone on. In Pal-
estine now the Jewish state
awaits the recognition which will
end forever this "statelessness"
which has caused Israel so much
suffering.
SAME FEARS
Herzl, in Europe, met the same
fears which today inspire those
arch foes of Jewish national free-
dom, the so-called American Coun-
cil for Judaism, "the hush-hush"
policies of those who safe them-
selves, were afraid to rush to
the defense of their less fortun-
ate fellow-Jews. The small of
heart, the timorous of Herzl's (lay
sought by nefarious means to
desecrate and destroy the sacred
toil of these early Zionists. And
today the ideological descendants
of these same forces (10 not hesi-
tate to stoop to the same methods
in their designs to defeat the just
aspirations of the Jewish people.
They debase themselves with
shameful eagerness; they wallow
in the mire of distortion and de-
gradation—their aim is only to

—DAVID GOLDBERG, Pres.

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Herzl's Enemies

Friday, September 7, 1945

Call HOgarth 9686

205

Phone R. 0. 2188

N. TROY

Royal Oak, Mich.

