Curfew Changed Modern Tel Aviv To 'City of Dead,' Weisgal Reports

The author, Mendy Weisgal '45, spent 2 1/2 months this summer in a land into which hundreds of thousands are trying, and falling, to get--Palestine. He went as secretary to a group of American scientists, headed by Louis Fieser, professor of organic chemistry here, who laid a foundation stone for a research center in Rehovoth. He came back after seeing much of the disputed land, and is writing a series of three articles for the Crimson. This is the first.

There is no word for immigration in Hebrew, and so "aliyah" meaning "the going up" is always used. This refers to the going up from Egypt to the Promised Land, described in Exodus. "Every one must first make the Exodus from Egypt to really appreciate Palestine" said Chaim Weismann, President of the World Zionist Organization.

The violent contrast that sets Palestine apart from its Middle Eastern Neighbors is indelibly impressed on the traveller's mind as he makes his way from the desert wastes of Egypt and southern Palestine, and finally catches a glimpse of the ordered green of a Jewish agricultural settlement. Contrast is your next door neighbor in Palestine: the winding and tortuous lanes that are the streets of Jericho and Beersheba; the broad landscaped boulevards of Tel Aviv; the picturesque and "perfumed" Arab Markets in the "Old City"; the Hospital and Hebrew University that overlook the New Jerusalem; an orange grove pushing back the desert; an Arab fellah hurrying his sheep to the side of the road to let a convey of British tanks go by.

This curious mixture of old and now is curiously resolved in Jerusalem. An ancient city, it has aura of repose and settled dignity. Built entirely of a time defying, beige and yellow tinted stone, the newest buildings seem as old as the oldest, and the most ancient houses, no older than the now. And when the city is seen from the heights of Mount Scopus, sleeping under the brilliant summer sun, the vision is breathtaking.

Tel Aviv, on the other hand, is like a growing child that is bursting his breeches. All the intensity and vigor that symbolize the new Palestine are found in Tel Aviv. It is the throbbing pulse, cultural and commercial, social and political of the Yishuv, or Jewish Community in Palestine. They don't call it Palestine in Tel Aviv: It's "Ereta Visrael," the Land of Israel, or more simply. Arets, the Land.

This source said the British general staff had proposed tentatively the withdrawal of British administrative and supply bases from the Eastern Mediterranean--including Palestine--to the East, African colonies of Kenya and Tanganyika.

This proposal envisioned retention of Britain's forward operational bases as long as practicable in such countries as the Sudan, Palestine, Iraq and Trans-Jordan, the informant said.

Reasons advanced in support of the change include Britain's gradual evacuation of India, her impending departure from Elgypt and the instability of the Palestine situation.

Although Palestine's instability was recognized in a general staff report proposing the change, the informant said there appeared to be little likelihood of a complete withdrawal from the Holy Land