454
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
talents of the countries of their birth. Each brought to Israel
the gifts peculiar to his place of origin. The inflow of this rare
blend of talent enriched the new republic, as our own had
been enriched. Israel provided a cultural soil in which ideas
germinated swiftly. This dynamic creativeness—so startlingly
in contrast to Arab apathy—was displayed in the amazing
number of small, everyday consumer goods manufactured in
Israel. Tel Aviv abounded in small factories engaged in producing goods of all kinds. Unlike the communal kibbutzim, I
found that free enterprise prevailed in the cities.
SELFLESSNESS
AS I traveled through the length and breadth of the tiny
republic, the dominant over-all impression I gained was that
a spirit of selflessness was present everywhere: the personal
concern of one human being for another. The Jew, I felt, was
here reaching an inner peace and security, which came from
living in a land that had banished the Jewish stereotypes so
often identified with him elsewhere: he was as good or as bad
as his neighbor. In contrast to a life of prejudice and persecution, in Israel he was a human being accepted by his fellow
human beings on terms of equality.
Here, in a country where labor had a new dignity, and
where the Jew was not forced into limited social and economic spheres, he had an opportunity to express himself
according to his abilities and his aspirations.
I spoke with a remarkably frank British journalist in Tel
Aviv, who struck at the core of the alarm that Israel had induced among some persons. He was Walter Lucas, an English journalist. "The trouble with these Jew is that they are
too earnest, too energetic," Lucas said. "I'm frightened at
the thought that this world is a prophecy of the future."
"Why are you frightened?" I asked.