British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume II - Page 677

CHAPTER XVI.

and economic life and, therefore, meets a need essential to every individual. This can be proved impartially by the fact that that press has definitely established itself within the various circles of the Yishuv, in social, cultural, scientific, economic and professional

efforts " They were referring to 8 daily newspapers and 62

periodicals, the majority of which displayed their vitality by surviving the retrenchment in newsprint.

116. The most notable of the Jewish cultural institutions is probably the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, which has achieved an international reputation. It is managed by the Palestine Orchestra Trust and employs some 70 musicians. It has been conducted from time to time by some of the greatest conductors in the world. The Palestine Folk Opera produces the works both of Jewish and other composers. There is a Palestine Oratorio Society and an association, "Music for the People", which fulfils the purposes implicit in its designation. The choir at the Great Synagogue in Tel Aviv is also subsidized by public bodies. There are numerous smaller musical bodies, notably those specializing in chamber music, of an unusually high standard. There is an annual public prize for original musical compositions. (Although not falling within the scope of this note, mention should be made of the Palestine Broadcasting Service orchestra, formed by the Government, which has achieved considerable local celebrity).

117. In the dramatic arts, the Jewish community is served by the Habimah theatre and the Ohel theatre. The former, a cooperative society of actors, is housed in a fine new building in Tel Aviv, the construction of which was assisted by the Tel Aviv municipality under the terms of the Habimah Building Loan Guarantee (Validation) Ordinance, 1939*. The Ohel theatre is maintained, as mentioned in paragraph 48 of chapter XVII, by the General Federation of Jewish Labour but receives subventions from other public bodies. Both theatres specialize in the presentation of Jewish drama in the Hebrew )anguage. There is also Matate, a satirical theatre on European lines; it engages in outspoken commentary on social and political problems of the day which particularly touch the Jewish community. The Art Theatre of the kindergarten teachers' society brings the drama to the education system (in the narrower sense of the word).

118. lt is in the literary field that the attention given to the cultivation of distinctively Jewish qualities is perhaps most remarkable. There are associations concerned with the texture of the Hebrew language, notably the Hebrew Language Committee and the Va'ad Halashon--a body for modernizing the
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* Laws of 1939, Vol. I, page 31.

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