“Young people, listen! Somewhere, someone is holding our fate on a balance scale. And the sides of the scale go up and down, up and down. On one side – the Holocaust, the revival of Israel, and the wars of Israel. On the other side – political and business intrigues and they are very weighty. Youngsters, remember, when the time comes, throw yourselves onto the scale. Throw yourselves with strength and courage. It will be decisive; the weight will shift, Youngsters, listen!”

Ze’ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky was a Zionist leader, a writer, a poet, a translator, a journalist and a famous orator. He was one of the people who revived the Hebrew military: he was a founder of the Gdud HaIvri in the British army during World War I and a founder of an independent group for the protection of Jews in Odessa. He was the founder of Revisionist Zionism, the head of Beitar, the military leader of the Etzel and the president of HaTzohar (Union of Revisionist Zionists). He was one of the leading liberal Jewish philosophers of the modern period.

“The day will come when my people will be a great and free nation. All the colors of the rainbow will shine on the Land of Israel and its beautiful landscapes. The sweat of my people – my work is the work of one of the builders of a new temple to a single- God whose name is the people of Israel.”
“Everything that is Hebrew in us was given to us by Eretz Israel; everything else in us is not Hebrew. Israel and Eretz Israel are one; there we were born as a nation and there we matured. And when the storm came and threw us out of HaEretz, we could no longer grow, just as an uprooted tree cannot grow. And all our lives were dedicated to preserving our uniqueness which was created in Eretz Israel.”
Zionism and Eretz Israel 1904

Henrietta Szold was an educator, a social worker, a writer and a Zionist activist. She lived in the USA and later in the Land of Israel. She was the founder of the Zionist women’s organization, Hadassah and headed the organization Aliyat Hanoar (Youth Aliyah)

In 1920, she came to Israel on aliyah to coordinate the Zionist Health and Education Department. She founded the first school for nurses in Eretz Israel. In addition, she established Hadassah public clinics all over the country, establishing the basis for a health care network in Israel. Szold was the chairwoman of the Hebrew Women’s Organization. In 1931 she was chosen as the representative of The Union of Hebrew Women for Equal Rights to the third Assembly of Representatives. She also served as the head of the social worker services under the management of the Jewish National Council. One of her organizational decisions was to establish a Welfare Department (which today is known as The Department of Social Services), with offices all over the country. All of the Department’s social workers received professional supervision. By the time she died, 50 welfare offices had been established in the Yishuv. Szold’s actions and decision laid the groundwork for the principle of a welfare state in Israel. In 1932, after the Jewish Agency approved the idea of Youth Aliyah, which was the brainchild of Recha Freier, Szold was appointed head of the body. She served in this position until her death and was known as the “Mother of Youth Aliyah”. In this role she was responsible for the absorption of children and who came to Israel after the rise of Nazism in Germany, including the “Teheran Children”. She was responsible for placing them in suitable frameworks, an issue which caused a public debate. Szold decided that the children over 14 would have the right to choose which framework they wanted. Szold met with each of 400 of the younger children in order to clarify whether or not they came from religious homes in Poland so she could be certain she wasn’t causing them harm by sending them to an inappropriate school.