On Tisha B'Ab

Three Arab policemen and a Jewish officer were guarding the narrow lane that passes the Wailing Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem, most sacred as shrine of the Jewish faith. The Arabs sat in silence, wishing they were in the nearby Mosque Omar where thousands of Moslems were celebrating the eve of Mohammed's birthday. The lone Jew paced slowly up and down, pensive in the heavy Palestine dusk. He looked at the aged stones of the Wailing Wall where the day before 10,000 Jews had gathered as part of the fast of Tisha B'Ab, to lament the two destructions of the Temple. So old are those stones that, looking at them, one can reconstruct the scene of the first destruction when in 586 B. C. the Chaldeans, sword and armor glittering in the bright sun, swept through the Holy City, razed the Temple. Another scene was in 70 A. D. when the Roman Titus and his grizzled legionaries forced their way inch by inch to the heart of Jerusalem, burned the Second Temple. Slowly the Jewish officer walked by the wall, only remnant of the ancient Temple, reflecting on the sad history of his race.

Suddenly hearing a low crescendo of oices, the officer whirled toward the new gate leading from the Mosque Omar to the lane, shouted a hoarse phrase at the drowsing Arabs. For a moment they stood horror-struck, then fled. Through the gate poured a screaming, howling mass of Arabs, flaunting banners that flapped like big bats in the twilight. Down the lane they roared. Vainly an old beadle tried to halt them, was seized by powerful dark hands, hurled aside. Two Jews bowed in prayer at the altar were savagely beaten. In a frenzy of plunder the Moslems burned prayer books and psalters, smashed lamps, made off with sacred relics.

Quickly word of the raid spread among Jews. The great gloom that had preceded Tisha B'Ab continued at this latest desecration. Leaders were indignant, pointed out that Great Britain had failed to maintain its protectorate.

The raid emphasized for Jews the significance and need of a meeting, an event, that had taken place two days before, about 1,900 miles away in Zurich, Switzerland. There, outstanding Jews of the world had assembled, for the meeting of the Jewish Council Agency, the new body uniting the Zionist and non-Zionist factions of Jewry (TIME, Aug. 19). Three hours before the fast of Tisha B'Ab began, there had been tears of joy, embracing, glad shouts of "Mazeltov!" (Congratulations) as Zionists and non-Zionists had signed a pledge to work in harmony for the Jewish National Home in Palestine.

At the Zurich meeting, Jews skilled in law, shrewd in business, confident of their race, continued planning Palestine's development. They discussed a $15,000,000 Palestine finance corporation, approved a budget for the ensuing year of $3,750,000 for work, $5,000,000 for buying land. At the conclusion of the meeting Baron Edmond de Rothschild of France was elected honorary president of the Council, with Dr. Chaim Weizmann of London, main spring of Zionism, as real president. Two U. S. Jews were prominent :

Felix M. Warburg gave $500,000 toward a fund to establish the finance corporation, was elected head of the administrative committee. The corporation, he said "must be conducted . . . by a board which tries its best for the shareholders. The business must be conducted calmly, without hysterics or indiscretion."

Louis Marshall, "Ambassador of Israel to the world," elected chairman of the Agency, grew jubilant over the prospects of united Jewry. Said he: "In the seventy-third year of my life I have now found an ideal which I sought for 30 years. We American Jews . . . are not 'money bags'. . . . We have done our duty to our brethren."