Page Eighteen

THE JEWISH NEWS

Friclay, September 20, 1946

`llachslitarah'
In the U. S.

By MARC H. TANENBAUM

(Copyright, 1946, JTA, Inc.)

F

IFTEEN miles south of New Brunswick,
N. J., at the end of a winding, gravel road, there
lie 120 acres of fallow land now being tilled and
cultivated by a young, new group of farming
pioneers who call themselves "Chalutzim."
Numbering 38 young men and women, these
"farming pioneers" are unique in the annals of
agricultural history, for they represent the spear-
head of religious farmers whose labor on New
Jersey soil is fired with the aspiration of develop-
ing agricultural technique and skills which they
will eventually carry with them to Palestine.
Ranging from 18 to 27 years of age, these youth-
ful orthodox Jews work from dawn to dusk, six
days per week, on the "Hachsharah" (farm train-
ing center), resting only on the Sabbath.
They have developed a cooperative unit such
as that functioning in farm centers in the Holy
Land, wherein each member of the group is
enabled to take his turn at farm chores, or do-
mestic tasks. One labor of love common to all
and in which all partake most diligently is that
of studying the Torah and supplementary Hebrew
studies.
•

from the eggs laid the day before in the

henhouse which shelters their several
hundred White Leghorns.
Fresh vegetables are gathered from the
70 acres of tillable land, an ample supply
of excellent quality tomatoes, peas, carrots,
beans, potatoes, and corn. Ripened ap-
ples are plucked from their 32 tree orchard.
The recent meat shortage caused no sleepless
nights for the elected five-man executive board
which governs the Chalutzim's work ativity, since
their supply of calves now reduced to four Guern-
seys—furnished tasty and nourishing fare. Sim-
ilarity, coal strikes were of little concern, for 35
acres of forest hinter lands supplied fire wood
aplenty.
Their agricultural "education" is not confined
to the hoe and plow. The handling of a tractor,
reaper and binder is as much part of their cur-
riculum as harnessing the horsepower of their
two frisky mares. Learning to drive two late-

-

One-Year Training Period

The cosmopolitan touch is added to the rural
scene with the suspension of a "Broadway—Sev-
enth Avenue Local" sign right smack on the top-
side of one army shelter. Unlike their urban
cousins, these fervent religious Zionists who ar-
rived at their present site last March, can and
will remedy their housing situation by purchas-
ing a full-scale army barracks.

•

the Chalutzim upon arising at 5:00 a.m. imme-
diately drive in the eight cows from their ten-
acre pasture, milk them in the barn, and turn
them out to graze. The male members then gather
in the converted chamber—synagogue, and daven
Tfilas Shacharith (morning prayers) in Minyan.
Meanwhile, the farmerettes prepare breakfast

Girls at work in a collective settlement in Palestine.
The women do their share of the work.

model automobiles which enable their commut-
ing to New Brunswick, Monmouth Junction, and

environs, rounds out their training program.
A group of former Yeshivah University stu-
dents is at this moment learning con-
struction work at the expert hands of Mar
Omesi, a professional builder who prides
himself on the fact that 25 years ago he
helped build the first house in Tel Aviv.
Under his guidance, the sunburned youths
are reconstructing a ramshackle barn. -

$50,000

A group of chalutzim in Palestine discussing plans ;or
expansion of their colony.

Jews in Postwar
Soviet Russia

By HENRY FRANKEL

(Part of a review to be published In the forthcoming .olum€ of
the American Jewish Year Book. Released by the JTA. 'inc.. with
the permission of the Jewish Publication Society.)

RIOR to Hitler's Third Reich. tsarist Russia
P
maintained by law and practice the world's
most anti-Semitic policies. When the Soviets came

To prepare themselves for migration to and
settlement in Eretz Yisroel at the end of their
one-year training period requires a concentrated
effort—and so, these youths, most of whom are
college graduates and former..Yeshivah students,
arise bright and early at 5:00 a.m. and work
doggedly 12 hours per day in the sprawling fields,
orchards, or barn.
Because the housing shortage has pinched them
as badly as their city brethren, the "Chalutzim"
have arranged their living quarters so that their
feminine members live in the two-storied, eight-
room house, while the men "rough it" in the rug-
gedness of eight army tents lined up in a semi-
circle.

Their Day Starts at 5 a.m.
In developing their agricultural "know how"

Feed the flock of chickens belonging to one of the newer
Jewish settlements in Palestine.

Being

Invested

To further the development of the Hach-
sharah into a modern, efficient organiza-
tion $50,000 is being invested during the
current year. Guardian angel of this
project is the Hechalutz Hamizrachi, a
joint administrative committee which su-
pervises the Hachsharah finances supplied
by the Education and Expansion Fund of
the Mizrachi Organization of America,
and by the Mizrachi Women's Organiza-
tion, the Hapoel Hamizrachi, the Hashom-
er Hadati, and the National Council of
Young Israel.
Realizing that all work and no play
makes even the Chalutz a dull boy or girl,
the Mazkirit (the governing body of the
Hachsharah) has developed a varied pat-
tern of cultural activities which have
rendered Hachsharah life both socially in-
teresting and intellectually stimulating.
Discussion groups, song fests and the cul-
tural interests enhance the group life of
the Hachsharah and ties the members into
a well-knit fabric.
Only one note of disappointment can
be discerned among the Chalutzim: They
live for Israel, they work fdr Israel, but they pine
for the day when they will be on the land of IsraeL

into power. they took up the fight against anti-
Semitism from the very first days of the Revolu-
tion. In the years preceding the second World
War. the Soviet Union uncompromisingly classed
anti-Semitism as a particularly crude variety of
international Fascism. And during the Second
World War itself, the Soviet's fight against anti-
Jewish racialism was one of the main aspects of
the Red Army's exploits.
Efforts of the Soviet Government have not
been in vain. Before the war broke out there
was reason to believe that anti-Semitism had
already been eliminated from Soviet life. However.
after the Germans were driven out of the areas
they had invaded. it was found necessary to take
firm measures against a fresh wave of anti-Jewish
prejudice which they had fostered during their
occupation of these territories.
A V-E day message was sent "To Jews All
Over the World." over the signatures of 65 dis-
tinguished Soviet Jews. They included four Heroes
of the Soviet Union, all officers of guard detach-
ments; commanders of a partisan detachment and
of the submarine division of the Baltic fleet: the
chief physician of the Red Army: seven Stalin
prize winners—writers. scientists, a leading archi-
tect, movie producers and sculptors—and industrial
managers. The message congratulated th. Jews
of all the world on the occasion of the defeat of
Hitlerism.
To the miracle that was performed by Soviet
Industrial economy in providing the highly mech-
anized Red Army with the tools of war „That sur-
passed those of the German Wehrmacht. the Jews
contributed their fair share. Early in the war. one
of the Soviet Union's well known Jewish en-
gineers. Shulamith Silberstein. helped build a coke
chemical combine in the Urals which is reported
to be the largest in Europe. Simon Laviochkin,
Soviet airplane designer who constructed the powerful
LA - 5 and has been awarded thet itle of Hero of Socialist
Labor, is the son of a Hebrew teacher. Among other
Jewish holders of this title are J. Zaltman, vice-com-
missar of the Tank Industry, son of a Jewish tailor
from the Ukraine. who in addition holds three Orders
of Lenin. the Gold Medal. the Hammer and Sickle. the
Suvorov Order. the Kutuzow Order and several other
medals; further. Abraham Cikhovsky, often referred to
as the Soviet "cannon King" because his plan led that
branch of the munitions industry; and Lev Gonor. di-
rector of the much-bombed Stalingrad munition plant
which kept going around the clock only a few miles
from the battlefront at Stalingrad.
One hundred and twenty Jews have been awarded
the Stalin prize for discoveries and work performed in
the arts and sciences during 1943 and 1944, representing
20 per cent of those honored.
The most coveted honor among Soviet scholars and
scientists is membership in the Academy of Sciences
of the USSR. Jews. barred from Russia's._ universities
under the Tsars, occupy leading faculty posts there.
As the Germans were driven out and the early ,
reconstruction efforts began. the Jewish evacuees started
moving back from inner Russia into the liberated
Western regions. To cite just a few examples: in Sept-
ember 1945 it was reported that over 50.000 Jews had
returned to Kiev. and that the Jewish community
organization had been revived. Before the German in-
vasion, more than 150.000 Jews had lived in Kiev.
And in April 1946, the Jewish anti-Fascist commit-
tee reported that 8,000 Jews had returned to rebuild
their homes in the Ukrainian city of Berdichev. once
a major center of Jewish life. About 40,000 Jews had
been slaughtered in Berdichev during the occupation.
• In the beginning of 1946, it was reported that the
Soviet Government, with the easing of paper shortage,
has granted the Moscow Jewish Community permission
to print prayer books and religious calendars. There
are 14 synagogues in Moscow, four in the city proper.
The Leningrad Synagogue which had been badly
damaged by the Germans during the 29-month siege
was rebuilt in time to be used on Rosh Hashanah.
The absence of political or economic discrimination
elsewhere in the Soviet Union has given the majority
of Soviet Jews little inducement to pull up stakes and
go to the Jewish Autonomous Region of Birobidjan.
However, a considerable increase in its Jewish popula-
tion is deemed likely by some authorities for two rea-
sons. One is the new Jewish consciousness which the
war has brought to Soviet Jewry. The other is the
possibility that many Jewk, uprooted from the invaded
western regions, will decide to settle there.

