Page:Zionism 9204 Peace Conference 1920.pdf/48

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36
THE JEWISH NATIONAL FUND
[No. 162

for Palestine, such emigration will be largely increased. The Zionist Fund already amounts to over 12,000,000 francs, and this too is expected to be largely increased. Up to 1914 the capital of the National Fund invested in Palestine amounted to £195,000. In a second edition of a pamphlet on the Fund (No. 1 of the National Fund Library recently issued), it is stated that during the eight months of the year 1917, notwithstanding the colossal disadvantages under which it laboured, its revenue exceeded £50,000, derived as to 531,000 francs from Russia. 214,000 from North America, 18,000 from Holland, 15,000 from England, 15,000 from Canada, 14,000 from the Argentine, 40,000 from South Africa, Switzerland, Greece, East Asia, France, Sweden, Egypt, Denmark, Belgium, Australia, and Italy, and from 'other countries', presumably central Europe, 453,000 francs.[1]

§15. Zionism and the Jewish Community

During the war, there have been cross-currents in Jewry which have resulted in a distinct triumph for the Zionists. The Palestine question is one of the great problems for the Peace Congress. The Governments of the Allied Powers, especially Great Britain, the United States, France, and Italy, are believed to see its solution in some government by or for the Jews. Most Zionists hope for this under the aegis of Great Britain. The great Jewish communal bodies, especially in England, have kept aloof from the Zionists. Russian pogroms and Rumania's disregard of the Treaty of Berlin inspired them with horror and indignation. But the Zionists, somewhat unfairly, taunt them because their feelings of generosity and philanthropy had diverted the Hirsch millions to South America rather than to Palestine, because their philanthropy was blind, and they seemed opposed to any scheme which went beyond almsgiving. As a matter of fact

  1. See The Jewish National Fund. by Adolf Böhm, 2nd ed. The Hague, 1917.