Suddenly I came to the sea. Wandering along the promenade from Sir Herbert Samuel Square to London Square, I found one of the loveliest beaches I had yet seen. Flanking it were dozens of open-air cafés and restaurants, with Jaffa adding a picturesque background and reminding you that this was still an old land—you were apt to forget it in Tel Aviv.

I strolled around most of the day, occasionally sitting in one of the many boulevard cafés. I watched the busy life of the city before me, and saw also many unhappy continental faces.

The sad faces of the Jews! I saw no unhappy-looking children: They were being cared for, had perhaps forgotten. But in the faces of the older people, there was still the shadow of Europe. These were the uprooted ones—die Entwurzelten—who unhappily would carry that shadow for the rest of their lives. Their bodies might be free now, but their minds would never be. You cannot degrade matured human beings beyond the point where they cease to be human and then expect them to heal. But they are the transients. Their sadness will die with them and their seed will not bear its marks. For in the faces of young Jews in Palestine, there is a quiet strength of feature and of purpose the likes of which I had never witnessed before. It made the contented faces of English Jewry seem decadent. These young Jews and Jewesses, whether they were Palestinian-born or had succeeded in throwing off the shackles of Europe, were strong. And about them was the breath of freedom.

To happy people like the English or Americans, such freedom is a birthright; to Jews, it is not. Yet here in Palestine, looking at them dispassionately and even critically, I saw it. You may hear about these things and read of them, and you may be glad; but to understand this look of freedom, you must see it with your own eyes. Only then will you know its meaning. The Jews of the world are an old, old people. But the Jews of Palestine are young—the youngest people in the world. They are not carefree. They have great and difficult problems. And in their hearts they carry the memory of the fate of their brothers and sisters in Europe, a fate that an indifferent world is rapidly forgetting. But they are young and strong, the Jews of Palestine, and they are eager to shoulder their problems, although they will never forget their Jewish brothers and sisters.

They cannot awaken the dead. But they can and will succor the living. This they are determined to do with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their might.

The afternoon had set, and night was falling on the Jewish city. Lights sprang up everywhere, and music came from a hundred cafés and restaurants, bars and clubs. The promenade looked enchanting. Here the melodies of a dozen nations intermingled. The swing music of America blended with sentimental Russian tunes, the fiery czardas of Hungary with the lilting Vienna Waltz. Fragments of Beethoven drifted from a ground-floor piano. There was dancing and the murmur of a thousand conversations, the laughter of women. Tel Aviv was gay and charming and its women were beautiful. The day had been hot, but now it was cool, and the swell of the sea was clean and full of fragrance.

In the midday sun we stood at the foot of the Wailing Wall, towering high above our heads in space and in time. Untold numbers of Jews had come here throughout the centuries, had wept, and had received consolation. Into its thousands of crevices the prayers of our people had been inserted.

I had never been a religious Jew, but the silent, regal dignity of the Wall stirred me deeply. My Gentile friend, too, I could see, was affected. I tried to explain to him its meaning. There were few people present at this time of day. Among them was an old lady who wept quietly as she prayed close to the Wall. A sturdy peasant girl stood near us and kissed the sun-baked stone with infinite tenderness. Walking backwards, she seems almost unable to take her farewell. And strangely, my companion and I had the same feeling. We left slowly and almost unwillingly, casting another and yet another glance back, hesitating to depart from “a sight so touching in its majesty.”

We turned our backs on the Old City and went to look at the New. Most of its buildings were large and spacious, built of that same rough white stone that I had seen en route this morning. Their contours were dignified and combined agreeably the old Eastern and new Western civilizations. In the residential quarter of Rehavia, streets were wide and frequently tree-shaded.

I wanted to see something especially representative of Jewish initiative and endeavor, and was delighted when the Jewish Services Club arranged for a visit to Hadassah Hospital. A short drive took us to Mount Scopus, with the beautiful buildings of the university and the hospital. We were met by the secretary and given the history of this magnificent hospital. Its erection had been the work of the American Hadassah, and it ranked among the foremost hospitals in the world.

We saw immaculate kitchens with the latest devices for the preparation and serving of food. Cheerful nurses and trainees dressed in white, and spacious, airy wards. My companion, whose medical knowledge was considerably greater than mine, discussed technicalities, and seemed greatly astounded and impressed. We saw the maternity wards, with rows of tiny, pink babies behind an enormous window of plate glass. Fathers stood in front and made those cooing noises which are the same in any language, while efficient nurses held up their offspring for inspection. We were shown the waiting room for expectant fathers, with easy chairs and a large space for pacing up and down. A doctor, we were told, was always ready to give first aid to over-anxious male parents.

The hospital will take all but the very rich: These must go to private clinics or nursing homes. Patients pay according to their means; the poor, of course, not at all. The hospital takes all patients irrespective of race or creed. Arab women, used throughout the centuries to giving birth at home and without medical assistance, were at first reluctant to come; now, having heard of the wonders of modern medicine, they are arriving in increasing numbers. I saw Arab women of all classes in various parts of the hospital. The presence of these women impressed me. You read so much, these days, of the insoluble differences between Jew and Arab. In this Jewish hospital, unobtrusively and without any fuss, patients were sick people whom it was desired to heal, and there were no differences.

We had to leave Jerusalem early in the afternoon in order to report back to our air-trooping draft, but on returning to camp we learnt that we were to have yet another day in Palestine.

I was shown the golden books of the Jewish National Fund, enormous in their beautiful bindings. I went into the vaults where the Herzl archives are kept. I saw the original manuscripts of Der Judenstaat and of the Diaries, and other writings; files of personal documents and letters, all kept with loving care and devotion. I met the head of the archives and other officials. From Leib Jaffe, that Grand Old Man of Jewry, I heard many tales of the early Congresses. Together with him I visited the Hebrew University. Together we stood in the amphitheater where Balfour had declared this Jewish university open, and we looked for miles across the hills to the Jordan and beyond. Together we stood at Pinsker’s grave. He, too, had a vision. Independently, and indeed, before Herzl.

Throughout the centuries of the diaspora, Jews had had that vision: It was given to a few to express the prayer and the dream that had been in the heart of every Jew, if not in his mind.

And now the dream was coming true. Daily, hourly, it was becoming more of a reality. A new land was growing out of this old, old country, and it would continue to grow, as surely and irresistibly as the passing of time.

Wenn ihr wollt, ist es kein Märchen—if you will it, it will be no fairy tale.

You willed it, Jews, with your hearts and with your souls, with your minds and with your bodies, with your work, with your sweat and with your blood, with all the sorrow in your hearts—yes, and with your gladness too. And see, it is no fairy tale.