Letters and News

We have received several letters from Mr. Fuad Badr, director general of the administration of Dar al-Kitab, informing us of the success he is meeting in the United States in the mission for which he traveled. We shall acquaint our readers with the substance of such of this news as concerns them in our coming issues. For the present we content ourselves with mentioning that a large body of the Lebanese emigrants have asked Mr. Badr to bring out an English-language edition of the magazine "The Woman's Voice."

We are pleased to announce to our readers in America that Mr. Badr has taken a temporary office, so that it may be easy for them to communicate with him directly throughout his stay there. His address is as follows:
489 Fifth Avenue New York 17, N.Y.
Telephone: MUrray Hill 2-2492.

Mrs. Awatef al-Mar'i, president of the Women's Charitable League Association in North Lebanon, has sent us a copy of the telegram she addressed to Her Ladyship the First Lady of Lebanon, entreating Her Ladyship to grant the said association a quantity of the cloth arriving from the Lebanese emigrants, that it may distribute it among the poor and needy of the North. The Woman's Voice supports Mrs. Awatef's entreaty, and hopes that the First Lady of Lebanon will grant it, knowing as we do her all-embracing kindness, of which not a single district of this dear country has been deprived.

The office of Dar al-Kitab was cheered by the visit of the esteemed Egyptian journalist Mr. Zakaria Khalifa, editor on the newspaper "al-Misri" and other great Egyptian papers. Mr. Khalifa admired the publications of Dar al-Kitab and the intellectual and artistic effort by which they are distinguished, and he expressed his wish to see "The Woman's Voice" more widely circulated in the Egyptian land than it now is, for the benefit it contains for the Arab family. He was kind enough to call upon Mrs. Heneni Tarcha, the Responsible Director and president of the Lebanese Women's League, at her home. Mr. Khalifa has come to spend a few weeks traveling about in Lebanon and Syria. He is heartily welcome.

There has returned from Cuba the honorable Mrs. Hayfa Nasr Haidar, with her husband Dr. Nicolas Haidar, after they had spent some eighteen years there. Dr. Haidar holds a degree in law from the University of Havana, and he had the honor of calling upon His Excellency the President of the Republic and presented him with a Cuban flag, as a gift from the Lebanese colony in Cuba to His Excellency the President.
Dr. Haidar and his wife, accompanied by our friend Mr. Musa Sulayman, visited the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where the director of the Foreign Ministry, Mr. Fouad Ammoun, received them with every welcome, and they spoke at length of the Lebanese emigrants in Cuba, and of their excellence and brilliance in all the fields in which they work.
A hearty welcome, then, to Mr. Haidar and his honored wife.

The two Hajjahs, the Misses Aisha and Makram Abu Khadra of Gaza, have donated the sum of 25 thousand pounds toward the costs of building 42 stores in Jaffa... These stores will be made a religious endowment, their income to be spent upon the charitable hospital which the two great benefactresses are to establish, and for whose building they have donated the sum of half a million pounds...

The dispensary attached to the Women's Union in Jerusalem has issued a statement to public opinion, mentioning therein

that the patients treated at the hospital during the year numbered 2,891, whose treatment was given free by nine of the best physicians of Jerusalem, while a number of gracious ladies and young ladies of the first-aid committee worked side by side with the physicians... A tenth physician volunteered to give lectures on first aid to the gracious members. The association's income this year came to 1,128 pounds, of which 961 pounds were spent upon these noble aims of hers.

• The Society for the Support of Orphan Girls in Jaffa held a cinema benefit, allotting its proceeds to the school attached to it, in which the number of pupils has now reached 360 girls, and in which there are three scout troops. Twenty-three years have passed since the founding of this school, during which it has risen until it has become one of the finest national schools in the country.

• The Women's Union in Acre has arranged with two generous physicians for the free treatment of the poor who apply to the Union. Each physician has set aside half a day a week for this purpose.

• Her Majesty the Queen of Egypt opened the children's home established by the ladies of the Red Crescent.

• A royal decree may soon be issued entrusting the presidency of the Mabarrat Muhammad Ali to Her Majesty the Empress Fawzia.

• Her Royal Highness the Princess Faiza is expected to accept the presidency of the Modern Woman Society.

• Mrs. Zulaykha al-Shihabi, president of the Arab Women's Union, has arrived in Palestine, her efforts having been crowned with success in strengthening the bonds between the women's unions and organizations in Egypt.

• The women's movement has grown active in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and an amendment to the present body of the Union is expected shortly.

• Aleppo was honored by the wife of His Excellency the President of the Syrian Republic, who alighted as an honored guest with the wife of the respected deputy for Aleppo, Mr. Ahmad Khalil al-Mudarris. Numerous delegations and women's associations flocked to welcome her on her arrival.

• The woman of letters Mrs. Nadima al-Minqari has founded a women's magazine in Damascus under the name of "Majallat al-Mara."

Its first issue has reached us, and we found it containing valuable articles treating various literary and social subjects.

A hearty welcome, then, to the dear sister journal.

• God has blessed our generous friend Mr. Nadim Dimashqiya and his virtuous wife, in London, with a boy whom he has named "Riyad." May God make him one of the children of safety in the shelter of his generous parents and his two eminent grandfathers.

• There was concluded in Beirut the marriage of the great notable the Marquis de Freige to that lady of virtue and nobility, Miss Doumani. The celebration was confined to family and relations. To the noble bride and groom, our most sincere good wishes.

• Miss Marie Sabri, one of the members of the family of "The Woman's Voice," has returned from Egypt, where she spent the spring holiday. She has promised us to give, on the Woman's Voice program over Radio Lebanon, a talk describing her impressions of the sister country.