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The ESP of the Jewish Way of Life 
Roll your mouse over each circle to find the questions. Click on circles for more about Jewish ESP!
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100 Years of Those Little Blue Boxes by Gaby Schoenfeld |
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At times it seemed that the dream of a Jewish state was
destined to remain just that — only a dream. But
Theodor
Herzl was determined that before the end of the Fifth
Zionist
Congress in 1901, a national fund would be established.
He
believed that the establishment of the fund would bring
the
dream of a Jewish state — a return to the Homeland —
one
step closer to reality.
Over the next 50 years, the Jewish National Fund, as it came to be known, would purchase land throughout Palestine, land that would one day become the State of Israel. Jews from around the world collected spare change in tin "blue boxes" so that one day a return to the Homeland would be possible. The blue box itself came to be seen as a symbol of Zionism, and it was distributed in Jewish communities everywhere. The very act of collecting funds in a blue box strengthened the bond that the Jewish community felt with their homeland and its people. It was an expression of the irrevocable ties between Diaspora Jewry and Eretz Yisrael (land of Israel). In the spring of 1903, JNF acquired its first parcel of land: 50 acres in Hadera. From the start, the organization focused on greening the land through the planting of trees. By the time Israel became a state in 1948, JNF owned 12.5 percent of all the land of Israel (on which 80 percent of Israel’s population now lives). Over the years JNF has focused on afforestation; building infrastructure for essential new communities for Israel’s growing population; building access roads to help disperse the population; providing employment for waves of new immigrants; and improving the quality of life for Israelis across the country. Today a major emphasis of JNF is water resource development in Israel. Since 1901, Jewish National Fund has planted over 210 million trees, built over 120 dams and reservoirs, developed over 250,000 acres of land, created more than 400 parks throughout Israel, and educated students around the world about Israel and the environment.
All of this from the humble beginning 100 years ago of a
dream and little blue boxes. The following are two
examples
of how these little boxes had a big influence on many
lives.
A Blue Box Changed My Life Thinking back over my childhood, I can remember how the relationship between my mother and grandmother had been difficult. I remember clearly the huge screaming fight that put an end to their speaking to one another and an end to my relationship with my grandparents as well. But before that, when I was really little, I remember loving to ride the subway with my grandparents on Sundays to the park. I loved watching them carefully drop their coins into the little blue boxes the "big kids" held as they walked through the cars, asking for money for the Jewish National Fund. By 1928, when I was just 10 years old, my parents let me ride the subway by myself — I had finally arrived as one of the "big kids"! I was quite familiar with the subway system and would travel with my JNF Pushke, or blue box, asking people on the train to contribute to Jewish National Fund, just as I had seen the "big kids" do with my grandparents when I was little. I remember feeling nervous when I first started asking for donations, but people would smile at me and put their coins in my box, just as I had seen my grandparents do on the very same subway. This gave me the confidence I was doing something right, that I was doing something important to help Israel, but it also made me sad because I missed my grandparents very much and I hadn’t seen them in years. Still I filled blue box after blue box, just riding the subway and knocking on people’s doors in my neighborhood. One day, as I was going door to door, I knocked at a house on Tremont Avenue. An elderly woman answered the door. I gave her my usual spiel asking for money for Israel, and with a very familiar smile, she put her coins into my box. After she was done she just stood there, in the doorway of her house, looking at me and smiling. Mesmerized by her face, I just stood there too. Tears welled up in her eyes at the same time as I realized who was standing before me — it was my grandmother! I threw my arms around her and came into the house. Two days later, my parents and I went to my grandparents’ house for dinner. Everyone was happy to see each other after all of those years… the JNF blue box had reunited my family! This is a story I will never forget.
I still put money into my blue box every week… then I
think
of my family and smile.
Arrested at the Age of 12
Several of us decided to go as a group into the subway and try to fill up our blue boxes. So, three or four of us paid the five-cent fare and got onto the subway taking the Brighton local going uptown. We walked from one car on the train to the next until we had covered all of the cars. Then we got off the train, waited on the platform for the next local going uptown and continued with our speeches and collecting. At 42nd Street we got off the train, went upstairs, over to the other side, and did the same thing going back downtown to Brighton Beach. Our plan worked and we did this quite successfully for several days. Then, one day, I found myself alone collecting in the subway and was surprised to find myself stopped by a policeman. He told me that I was breaking the law because I was soliciting without a license. He took me to the police station at Union Square where they questioned me, called my mother, and then sent me home. My mother was never really angry at me for getting caught. It must have been her roots as a "sabra" (born in Jerusalem) that led her to completely forget to punish her "delinquent" son. 53 years later I found out that the City of New York had written harassing letters to the JNF in May of 1947 warning the organization against sending children into the subways and streets to solicit, since initially the permission granted the JNF for solicitation by the City was to be restricted only to "Jewish neighborhoods". For a few days after the "arrest" I stayed out of the subways but continued to collect under the "EL" on Brighton Beach Avenue. After all, the unstated competition the kids were having was to see who could fill up the most blue boxes, and the principal of the Hebrew School did keep score. Although I didn’t win the competition, I am still proud of my small role in the history of the times because exactly one year later, a month before my Bar Mitzvah, the State of Israel was established!
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Being
a more ETHICAL person.
