Report to the ... Zionist Congress and to the Council of the Jewish Agency in ... · 1937-08-01 · 8.1937 · p. Seite 38

— 38 — as apprentices, and in educational institutions. The rest of them, those who have been graduated into Palestinian life after two years' study and practical work under supervision, these first fruits of the undertaking should afford a test of the efficiency of the movement. The avowed purpose of the training as planned is the induction of the young people into agricultural pursuits. More than twothirds of the 582 youngsters no longer appearing on the lists of the Movement, have entered rural occupations. This high percentage would seem to prove that the system has stood as severe a psychological test as can be imposed. If, in addition, it can be demonstrated that the young graduates are holding their own in their self-dependent life and are proving themselves inured to labour and proficient in meeting its requirements, then the Movement should be pronounced successful educationally as well. In spite of the adverse economic conditions prevailing in the country and the grim struggle all workers are having to put up, the reports on the ten Plugot (Labour Groups) consisting wholly or in part of the graduates of the Youth Immigration are encouraging from the point of view of collective living, Hebraisation, and the quality of work rendered in the stable, the poultry-yard, the tree-nursery, the vegetable garden, and other departments of agricultural activity. They have a good record, too, for their willingness to turn their hand to any occupation—quarrying, road-making, building, porterage, hauling—when adverse times set in for purely agricultural pursuits. By and large the system of training has remained as it was introduced at the start. It has only been extended and intensified. The twelve collective settlements (kvutsot and kibbutsim) sheltering Youth groups in July, 1935, have grown into 29. The A hava, Ben Shemen and Bet Ze'irot Mizyahi institutions continue to serve as training centres. They have been augmented this year by the Ludwig Tietz Trade School. The group known as Rambam has completed its three years' technical training at the Trade School of the Haifa Technical Institute, and with only a few exceptions, its members have found occupations corresponding to their vocational attainments. The second technical group, Nehemia, first at Haifa, later removed to Ir Ganim in the Haifa Bay area, is still under instruction, the boys either as apprentices with master craftsmen or in the Trade School, and the girls after their first year spent at