Page 207 - ISRAEL'S CRADLE

There were also demonstrations and unusual gatherings, such as the women's demonstration against the edicts of the "White Paper" in May 1939, which marched from Downtown Jerusalem to the National Institutions Building
to Britain's violation of its promises. Several demonstrations took place there, and for several days after May 17, delegations and protestors arrived at the square, listened to statements of the leaders and the representatives of the organizations and movements, and left the square to continue the protest. A special protest took place on May 22 – A protest of the women of Jerusalem against "the White Paper." Marching at its head were women of prominence, whether in their own right or because of their husbands: Rachel Yanait, the wife of the Chairman of the Jewish National Council Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Rebbetzin Sarah Herzog, the wife of the Chief Rabbi, Ita Yellin, the wife of the Yishuv leader David Yellin and others. According to estimates, the demonstration totaled about 10,000 women of all the neighborhoods, movements and classes. The signs they carried read: "Two thousand years ago we went out to the desert – To the English people: Don't send us back there" as well as "The vile state shall not rise! The Jewish Land of Israel shall rise." Thousands of women came to the National Institutions Building, filled the square and then continued to march in the streets of Jerusalem.
At the end of 1942, the terrible scope of the Holocaust of the European Jewry first became known in the Land of Israel. An announcement of the Jewish Agency from November 23, 1942, had
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