A Chant of Blood and Tears

By HARRY KOVNER

0, Lord God isn't there in this great universe
One with a divine heart, a prophetic voice,
A Jeremiah, a Malachi, a Lincoln, a John Hay
To tell the inhuman race with scorn and dismay,
That they are partners in Germany's heinous crime
For if they were to cry out in the right time
The Jews would have been saved from a miserable
fate
And the world would have been spared this chaotic
state.
Oh, if the great powers were honest, God-fearing,
brave,
Scores of brave boys would have been spared an
untimely grave.

Oh, isn't there someone, sinner or saint,
Who would in black. colors paint
The tragedy, agony and plight
Of a martyred people ever in flight
From persecution, oppression, pogroms,
From being despoiled of freedom, trevure and
home.
Would anyone in any color tell
Of the horror, anguish and hell
Suffered by the Jewish race
These bloodiest of all days.
Isn't there anywhere woman or''Anan
To wield a bole.; and burning pen
In any language, in verse or prose
To relate, to recite. to expose
To the world the Germanic utter decay
Their fiendish urge to terrorize. to slay
Outbeasting their jungle friends they broke loose
With a sad fury against the poor Jews.

Like a tidal wave their Mate beastiality
Became the emblem of German nationality.
A carnival of murder and torture
Became the cornerstone of their culture
Anti-Semitic propaganda to inflame.
The world was invented as a political game.
Six million souls, children of God
Were murdered and hacked in cold blood.

First denuded, then driven around
Like frightened fox closed in by hounds.
Then carried off in trucks and cattle trains
To crematoria built by a race of Cains,
Where they processed gloves from their skins
And soap from their fat (to wash their sin)
And gold from their charred teeth.

These are treu facts (not a myth).
And all these diabolic acts were done
By a modern people in the light of the sun.
The whole civilized world well knew
Of the bitter plight of the Jews,
But not a thing.-aias done, absolutely naught.
No ways and means to find a remedy was sought.
No one extended a helping hand
To bring them to a safer land.
Alas, the Christian people to their eternal shame
Watched Dante's Inferno blaze into a crimson flame.
But regardless of their predominant power
They stood by unimpressed like silent towers.
Hearts remained frozen, ears bolted, eyes shut, lips
sealed
(Their conscience is ever at ease when Jews are
killed).
All talk of punitive measures were halted
For fear the Furher would be insulted.

Oh, if my eyes were not to run dry
I would continue to cry and cry.
I would with my tears of sorrow the earth flood,
And I would gather all the rivers of blood

And float on it to the seat of God.
And I'd take with me the bloody soaked sod
From all four corners which are filled
With the flesh, bones and limbs of the killed
Brothers and sisters of my tortured race.
And I would present to Him our case
And with all the evidence at my command
I would plead and plead and He would under-
stand.
0 God, save the remnant of Israel
From a world Godless. inhuman,rcruel.

Negbah Settlement Faces Typica l
Problems of Production Finance

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second
article on conditions in Palestine
written for The Jewish News by
Joseph Ettinger. agronomist with the
Agricultural Research Station at Re-
hovot, Palestine. Ettinger Is now
studying new agricultural develop-
ments and doing research work at
Rutgers University.

By JOSEPH ETTINGER
Negbah was founded at the be-
ginning of the _war. It was then
the most southern Jewish settle-
ment in Palestine. I visited Neg-
bah two weeks after the first
settlers built the first wooden
shacks surrounded by a wall.
When the first settlers arrived,
at the end of summer, the sur-
rounding hills were yellow. The
harvest had been gathered some
time before by the Arabs and
the land was bare.
When I was last in Negbah the
picture was different. The low
hills around were still as bare as
before, but from afar a green
garden was visible. Fruit trees,
vines, potato fields, etc. flourished
as an oasis in the desert. In the
center of the settlement were
newly built houses, cow sheds,
poultry houses. a cold storage
house for storing potatoes, etc.
But above all the heart of the
settlement—the two wells.
Answer to Future
The first question asked in
Palestine about a new settlement
is: "How much water do they
have?" The quantity of water
gives the answer to the future
possibilities of its development.
Often, as in the case of Negbah,
more water was found than had
been expected at first. Irrigated
land gives higher yields, and thus
a greater income.
This pattern of building up
new settlements is stressed so
vouch in Zionist propaganda that
it hardly requires repitition.
What is perhaps less well under-
stood is that there is place in
Palestine for many thousands of
such settlements as Negbah.
Negbah now has about 500 in-
habitants. Three hundred adults
and two hundred children live in
the settlement. During the last
summer 70 new immigrants, boys
and girls from deportation camps,
were admitted and absorbed.
Commercial Enterprise
A settlement like Negbah is
really a big farm, a commercial
enterprise in which a consider-
able amount of money has been
invested. Taken as a business
proposition the farm has to sup-
port its workers, pay interest on
the money invested and show a
profit.
About $200,000 has been in-
vested to date in Negbah. This
money has been used for drilling
wells, building the necessary
planting fruit trees, installing an

Page Thirty-Seven

THE JEWISH NEWS

Friday, April 4, t947

overhead irrigation system on
about a hundred acres, purchas-
ing tractors, live stock—in short,
providing facilities for profitably,
employing 150 workers. An-
other 160 are engaged in auxil-
iary work which does of show
a direct profit, such as cooking,
taking care of children and
watchmen.
About a third of the investment
was provided by the Department
of Agriculture of the Jewish
Agency as a loan that has to be
repaid in 20 year installments at
five per cent interest.
Settlers Invest
Another third has been loaned
by several Palestine banks, for
periods of from 2 to 12 years at
seven and eight per cent interest.
The rest of the money was in-
vested by the settlers themselves,
either earned from outside work
or saved from current income.
The high cost of interest and
short term credit form one of the
difficulties which the new settle-
ments have to face. though agri-
cultural loans are often provided
at three or two and a half per
cent in the countries.
It should be emphaized that all
the money, even that supplied by
the Jewish Agency, has to be
repaid in full and with interest.
It is then in turn, used to provide
loans for other settlements. If
the money supplied by the Jew-
ish Agency, had been sufficient
in the first place, for the current
needs of the settlements founded
some time ago or recently, their
economical conditions would have
been better.
Several Incomes
A communal settlement such as
Negbah has several sources of

Every agricultural
income.
branch in the farm has to show
a profit besides paying for the
number of work-days which are
required.
For instance: Negbah has 60
cows requiring the work of six
men or women. The total income
from milk sold and used at the
farm has to pay all expenses for
fodder, work and amortization
on the investment. An accurate
system of accounting is thus in-
dispensable in order to know the
exact situation.
Fruits, vegetables and eggs are
sold. Wheat and some barley pro-
vide the rest of the income. Four
trucks, and three tractors some-
times engaged in outside work
augment the income.
Every day spent in productive
work has to bring in an income
of at least L.P. 13000 of $6, of
which a third goes for paying
the loans and interest. The rest
is divided for the necessities of
life: Food, clothing. medical help,
and other essentials.

Very High Income

It should be stressed that as
only 50 per cent of the members
are engaged in productive work,
and though labor has now been
brought up to a very high grade
of productivity, it nets a very
high income and provides for a
relatively low standard of living.
From the national point of
view the money invested by the
Jewish Agency provides a liveli-
hood for 150 families. The grow-
ing farm provided last summer
for another 70. The amount in-
vested per family is relatively
low, considering the actual in-
flation in Palestine, and even
comparing this investment with
similar ones in other countries.
It is farms like Negbah that
were intended to absorb, and
could have done it successfully,
100,000 immigrants who
the

should have entered Palestine
last year.

We Extend Our

Wishes for A Very

Happy Passover

To Our Many Friends

We Will Be Closed During The

Passover To Give Our Capable

Staff A Well Earned Holiday.

SPRINGLE'S

FINE FOODS

8620 W. McNichotsRd.

away . . .") the Rev. Ford states:
"God has not forgotten his
promise. The shameful aloofness
of our own government in its
"hands-off" attitude of sharing

Illinois Pastor Declares
Bible Destines Palestine
For Jewish Homeland

ROCKFORD, 111.—The Rev. G. any responsibility in the plague
W. Ford, pastor of Lincoln Park now raging in Palestine will be
Church of Christ, reiterated his remembered by God, long after

conviction that Palestine is des-
tined to be the Jewish National
Homeland, in an article entitled
"The Jew and his Native Land,"
in the Rockford Register Repub-
lic.
Quoting the book of Jeremiah
(". .. and I will bring you again
into the place whence I have
caused you to be carried

the present political chess game
has been forgotten by the pres-
ent generation. The whole Gen-
tile world is yet to be spiritually
revived through the evangelical
labors of the Jew."
(The article was sent to The
Jewish News by Rabbi Abra:-
ham M. Danzig of Rockford,
ardent Zionist
an
who is
worker.)

_Nappy Paiiover

✓ ,

Aft

Our Jrientla

In rejoicing over the liberties we enjoy as free

American citizens, let us remember those who

continue to suffer the miseries that were imposed

upon them by the German barbarians.

We can never be completely free unless

our

fellow-Jews everywhere are free.

Our observance of Passover therefore would

be incomplete unless we share fully in the great

effort to rescue the European survivors from their

present plight and to throw in all our resources in

the rebuilding of Palestine as the Jewish National

Home.

For the sake of true freedom for all of us,

let us dedicate the Passover of 5707 to the suc-

cess of the Allied Jewish Campaign.

Mr. and

911".

e —a.he