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The Development of Palestine and German Jewry (1922)

Digitized Anthology of the Keren Hajessod (Palestine Foundation Fund) from 1922

Liberal, orthodox and philanthropically inclined Jews supported Jewish immigration to Palestine in the early twentieth century. They saw it as a way to provide stateless Jews, and especially those persecuted in Eastern Europe, with a perspective beyond Europe. 

The anthology of the Keren Hajessod (Palestine Foundation Fund), established in Berlin in 1922, demonstrates this broad-based commitment to Palestine. 

“We cannot know what the future holds for Palestine, and we cannot know what the future holds for Germany. We cannot know, but who can say whether even the grandchildren of those who seem secure today may one day be forced to depart for the ancestral land of their fathers?” (Leo Baeck, ibid., p. 14–15)

Der Aufbau Palästinas und das deutsche Judentum. Reden, Aufsätze, Dokumente (digitized copy in the DFG Viewer, in German) (1922)

From Idea to Implementation: Keren Hayesod

In 1917, twenty years after the first Zionist Congress, plans for a Jewish community in Palestine took shape with the Balfour Declaration, which called for a “national home for the Jewish People.” Supporting Jewish immigration to Palestine required vast sums of money. Keren Hayesod (Palestine Foundation Fund) was founded in London in 1920 for this purpose. It introduced a system of self-imposed taxation among Zionists, modeled on the biblical tithe, and raised funds worldwide. 

While the better-known Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (Jewish National Fund), active since the turn of the century, raised money through donation boxes and stamps to acquire land, which it then leased in perpetuity to Jewish settlers, Keren Hayesod financed public services such as education and health care, and above all the agricultural development of barren soils.

Beige book cover with the inscription “The Building of Palestine and German Jewry - Speeches, Essays, Documents.”

Book cover of the anthology Der Aufbau Palästinas und das deutsche Judentum (The Development of Palestine and the German Jewry, 1922); Jewish Museum Berlin

Further digitized materials on Keren Hayesod available in the DFG Viewer:

Book cover of "Emek Jisreel".

Book cover of Jakob Ettinger’s Emek Jisreel (Jezreel Valley) (1926); Jewish Museum Berlin

Further related digitized materials available in the DFG Viewer:

Digitized Books: Read Our Books Online (8)

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