Keren Hayesod — for our foundation.
This year is the 15th anniversary of Keren Hayesod. For the 15th time our Zionist activists will be mobilised for the difficult but responsible campaign for our fund of redemption, which creates the foundation of our national rebuilding. For the 15th time we will be received by the Pruzhany donors and will cheerfully remind them of their duty to the future of our people and land; we will call on them for substantial deeds and for real proof of their Zionist awareness and national responsibility, and — they will answer us. However hard the times may be, however depressed the economic situation, the healthy national instinct nevertheless dictates to the Jew that he treat our work with full dignity and seriousness, and — less or more, harder or easier — Israel is asked and gives! Somehow every Jew feels that here is the basis, here is the foundation of our existence.
We ourselves do not notice how new pieces of forms of life become embedded in our modern Jewish way of life, fit into the life of the people and create the distinctive shape of our present era of redemption.
Thus, over the last 15 years, hand in hand with the great Zionist upsurge and pioneering deed, we have managed to form also the distinctive voluntary taxpayer for our rising "state on the way"; and let the great educational merit of Keren Hayesod not be underrated in our eyes either, for this is surely the hardest training — the training of hearts, which expresses itself in deep understanding, a friendly reception and a willing donation for Keren Hayesod.
Fifteen years. How fast time runs. It seems as if it were yesterday when the first delegate of the Keren Hayesod headquarters, R' Yisrael, called together the first Keren Hayesod meeting of Zionist activists at R' Asher Pomerantz's home. Everyone came, young and old, and the campaign was at once set at the proper height. Jewish Pruzhany at once understood the whole importance and significance of the new fund: the first Keren Hayesod campaign was received by all strata of the people with fervour and true enthusiasm, and at its head stood the finest and best of Jewish Pruzhany.
Fifteen years have gone by. How much has everything changed in our life? How many victories and how many stumbles in the local Zionist work? Today, when a Jew gives to Keren Hayesod, he is already giving for himself too, because with thousands of family threads local Jews are today bound up with the process of revival in the Land of Israel. New forces have been drawn into the great work of the people, and the camp has grown larger. With fresh faith and courage we approach this year, in the 15th jubilee year, the Keren Hayesod campaign in Pruzhany, and we are sure that the campaign will be crowned with success.
It must also be stressed, to its credit: this year the headquarters has delegated to us the universally beloved and respected Keren Hayesod activist R' Zvi Lew — this Zionist veteran and spiritually rich scholar in whom there come together as a happy blend: practical wisdom of life, deep knowledge of the people, good humour and deep Zionist faith. However hard it will be, in the present hard economic time, to go to Jews to rouse and urge them, we will all together, cheerful and full of faith in the great just ideal, as one man fulfil our duty to the fund of our national foundation — to Keren Hayesod.
A. Az.