The Jews of Australia and New Zealand, totaling about 37,000, will contribute $400,000 this year to the Keren Hayesod, it was reported here today by Mrs. Archibald Silverman who visited the two countries to raise funds for Palestine.
Speaking at a luncheon tendered in her honor by the Keren Hayesod at the Roosevelt Hotel here, Mrs. Silverman said that although Australia and New Zealand are suffering from lack of population and are anxious to receive new immigrants, there is little likelihood that Jews from Europe will be admitted. At present the Australian authorities are discussing a plan of admitting 17,000 children into the country each year, but the plan stipulates that the children, ranging from 6 to 14 years of age, must be of “desirable” classes, specifying that preference should be given to war orphans from Britain, Italy, Greece and Germany.
Although the Jews in Australia and New Zealand constitute an insignificant percentage of the general population, anti-Semitism is strong there, Mrs. Silverman emphasized. The project of settling Jews in Kimberly aroused a storm of protests, she said. “Strangely enough the leading Australian Jews are as opposed as the Australian Government to the idea of segregating Jews into a self-created Ghetto life in the isolated wilds of Kimberly, in Northwestern Australia,” she reported.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
