Jewry's Role in

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HERITAGE OF TWO NATIONS
While the cultural climates of their times were decades and hemispheres apart,
Eliezer Ben Yehuda and Edna Ferber shared achievements as writers and
expositors for their times and places. He, as a lexicographer and philologist,
almost single-handedly revived and refreshed an ancient language which became
the living tongue of Israel to be. Shc, as a novelist and playwright, insightfully
captured the sweep and diversity of American life in the Twenties and Thirties,
and ranks high among the twentieth century's most enduring women writers.

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ELIEZER BEN YEHUDA
ES•
(1858 1922) b. Luzhky, Lithuania Father of
Modern Hebrew He embarked on a passionate
crusade stimulated by a vision: "It was as if the
heavens had suddenly opened, and a clear,
incandescent light flashed before my eyes, and a
mighty inner voice sounded in my ears--the
renascence of Israel on its ancestral soil." The
Zionist also foresaw that redeeming a Jewish
homeland meant restoring the people's historic language. Hebrew was the bond
that would reconnect Jewish settlers to their country and traditions.
Abandoning medical studies while living in Paris, Ben-Yahuda
relocated to Jaffa in 1881. With his wife and son in agreement, he set up the first
household in Palestine that exclusively spoke in Hebrew, an inflexible rule that
applied even to visitors. He was resolute in an almost solitary campaign for the
language's widespread acceptance, a battle fought with copious writings, lectures,
teachings and by personal example.
It was understandable why the Jewish orthodoxy of Jerusalem grew
suspicious of his advocacy. Ben-Ychuda had rejected the restricted use of
Hebrew as a religious tongue and proposed its universal adoption as a national
secular language for education, literature and science. Undaunted by the
opposition, the grammarian compiled his epochal Thesaurus (1910) which greatly
increased the number of Hebrew words and expressions for modern use--a much
expanded vocabulary which endures today.
As a matter of historical record, Hebrew is the only classical tongue of
the ancient world which has been reawakened in much of its earliest form. And
its impact on Israel's cultural development owes largely to this one zealous
pioneer with an almost sacred cause.

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EDNA FERBER
(1887-1968) b. Kalamazoo, MI Novelist /Play-
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wrIght "The historian will find no better picture
•• •••• of America-in the first decades of this century than
Edna Ferber has drawn." This observation by the
respected historian, William Allen White, explains
why Ferber was a chronicler of her age whose
colorful -and panoramic pictures of middle-class
Midwesterners won huge audiences. The land-
scape of our nation and the interior lives of its people inspired the 1924 Pulitzer
Prize-winning So Big which sold a then astounding 300,000 copies and was twice
filmed.
Ferber began her professional career as a newspaper reporter, and
turned to fiction out of a great love and respect for the American experience. In
her youth, the immensely productive story teller wrote more than one thousand
words a day, 350 days a year. Her numerous novels and short stories most often
dealt in accurate detail with the lives and adventures of women, and with people
tied to the land whose traditions were in conflict with dynamic social, cultural and
economic trends.
Among her many best-sellers were Cimmaron (1930), Saratoga Trunk
(1941), Giant (1952) and Ice Palace (1959) which were made into motion
pictures. Guiding these and other works were a keen cyc for a story, a wholesome
regard for the color and harmony of words and a precise ability at portraiture.
Although not considered "profound," many of her titles have been favored widely
by young readers and remain on the required reading lists of schools.
Ferber's eight plays include such Broadway hits as The Royal Family
(1927), Dinner at Eight (1932) and Stage Door (1936), written in collaboration
with George S. Kaufman. She is probably best remembered for Show Boat
(1926), an all-time stage classic in its musical genre.
-Saul Stadtmauer

COMMISSION FOR THE DISSEMINATION OF JEWISH HISTORY
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5/17
2002

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Rallying, Unmistakably, For Israel

L

nificant movement in the aftermath of
ast year, when Israel was
World
War.I with the emergence of
locked in a crucial military
Louis
Brandeis,
Rabbi Stephen Wise,
struggle against Palestinian
Rabbi Solomon Schecter and Abba
terror, the World Zionist
Hillel Silver as major collaborators in
Organization announced that it was
embarking on an election campaign for the shaping of Zionist policy.
the upcoming World Zionist Congress.
The WZO was apparently eager to
ZOA's Imprint
introduce an element of normalcy into
the life of Israel's terror-stricken society. The earliest and most important
instrumentality in American Zionist
The election process proceeded as
affairs was the Zionist Organization of
initially planned, with 90,000
America under the leadership
American Zionists casting their
of Louis Brandeis and subse-
ballots to elect 145 delegates to
quently Hadassah, under the
the 34th World Zionist
leadership
of Henrietta Szold.
Congress.
Since
the
creation
of Israel,
The first World Zionist
Zionist
congresses
invariably
Congress, convened by Dr.
have
been
held
in
Jerusalem
Theodor. Herzl, became institu-
where Israel's politically
tionalized, reassembling every
charged milieu inhibited the
four to five years to chart a
EZ EKIEL
delegates from tackling issues
course for the Zionist move-
affecting
Jewish life in the
L
EIKIN
ment.
diaspora.
Deliberations of the
Co
mmunity
In more recent years, the
Zionist
congresses
were
Views
WZO shared its decision-mak-
increasingly
Israel-centered
ing power with the Jewish
and dominated by Israel's
Agency for Israel and the ideo-
political constellation.
logical distinction between the two
It has been argued that the WZO
bodies has been increasingly blurred.
has evolved into a watered-down repli-
In previous years, the WZO and the
ca of the Knesset and that its delibera-
Jewish Agency — the latter composed
of Jewish Federation - leaders and execu- tions reflect the partisan rhetoric and
stridency of Israel's body politic.
tives — clashed on matters of adminis-
However, under the leadership of Salai
tration and ideology. This necessitated
Meridor, a scion of one of Israel's most
the formation of commissions and
respected families, the WZO has been
forums known as the "Caesaria" and
streamlined and re-activated to assume
"Herzlia" processes, to reconcile
an ever-greater role in promoting
Zionist organizational and ideological
aliyah, Jewish education and fund-rais-
issues with those of the Jewish-Agency.
ing for Israel.
Pre-state Zionist congresses were
The religious Zionists won 29 dele-
enlivened and enriched by the quality
gates
out of the 145 allotted to
and scope of their deliberative sessions,
American
Zionists. The Reform
which featured presentations by such
Zionists
won
61 seats while the
Zionist luminaries as Max Nordau,
Conservative Zionists secured 32.
Chaim Weizmann, Nachum Sokolov,
Hadassah, the largest women's
Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Ben Zvi and David
Zionist
organization, did not partici-
Ben-Gurion. The WZO has grappled
pate
in
the
elections, although several
with such momentous issues as the
of
its
former
national presidents were
abortive negotiations between Herzl
featured
within
the slate of the World
and the Turks who ruled Palestine, the
Confederation
of
United Zionists-
issuance of the Balfour. Declaration by
B'nai
Zion.
Great Britain, negotiations with the
One is bound to conclude that
League of Nations about the Palestine
Israel's major political parties will dom-
mandate, the Uganda project advocat-
inate the agenda of the 34th World
ed by Herzl as the "Asylum for the
Zionist
Congress, offering little time or
Night" and the extensive diplomatic
attention
to the "pedestrian" platforms
activities in European capitals to shore
of
American
Zionists. On the positive
up support for Britain's pledge to
side,
what
the
Congress undoubtedly
"facilitate the establishment of a
will
accomplish
is to reaffirm — in
national home for the Jewish people in
unmistakable terms — world Jewry's
Palestine."
solidarity with, and support for, the
American Zionism surfaced as a sig-
embattled government and people of
Ezekiel Leikin is a Southfield resident.
Israel. 111

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