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The Development of Palestine and German Jewry (1922)

Digitized Anthology of the Keren Hayesod (Palestine Project) from 1922

This anthology demonstrates the cross-party commitment of German Jewry to Jewish settlement in Palestine.

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

Liberal, orthodox and philanthropically inclined Jews established the Keren Hayesod (Palestine Project) in 1922 to support Jewish immigration to Palestine. They saw it as a way to provide stateless Jews, and especially those persecuted in Eastern Europe, with a perspective beyond Europe.

“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)

Financing the infrastructure in Palestine: the 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.” 

Balfour Declaration

More on Wikipedia

Supporting Jewish immigration to Palestine required vast sums of money. Keren Hayesod (Palestine Project) 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. 

The official Zionist department for Central Europe was located in Berlin under the name Keren Hayesod (Palestine Fund). The Keren Hayesod (Palestine Project) of the same name, also founded in Berlin two years later, supplemented this by fundraising among Jews who were not members of Zionist organizations. 

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

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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