A resolution calling for an intensive effort during the balance of the current year for the realization of the $170,000,000 goal of the United Jewish Appeal and for the acceleration of collections of cash from those who have already made their contributions to the nationwide campaign for re(##), rehabilitation overseas, for the upbuilding and settlement of Palestine and for assistance to refugees coming to the United States, was adopted today at the closing session of a two-day national conference which launched the UJA’s fall campaign.
Former Governor Herbert H. Lehman, who presided at this morning’s session; (##) Morgenthau Jr., general chairman of the UJA; Dr. Israel Goldstein, Dr. Jonah (##) se and William Rosenwald, national co-chairman; Edward M.M. Warburg, chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee; Edwin Rosenberg, president of the United Service for New Americans, and others joined in calling on American Jews to rally to the UJA.
Emphasizing that the deportation of the Exodus refugees to Germany was “the (##)est blow to the hopes of European Jewry since the end of the Hitler regime,” (##) Goldstein said that at the present time the UJA represents the only major instrument for preventing the complete collapse of the morale of the “Jews who have suffered repeated disappointments in their anxious search for freedom and security. “Unless the doors of Palestine are opened wide in the coming months, many of the remaining Jews of Europe will be doomed to the existence of outcasts and fugitives,” Dr. Goldstein said.
“The United Palestine Appeal is the organization upon which great new responsibilities will devolve in the implementation of the recommendations of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, particularly the provision for the immigration of 150,000 Jews to Palestine within the next two years,” Dr. Goldstein added.
Mr. Lehman, former director general of UNRRA, warned the conference that a (##) of “hopelessness” was sweeping “every Jewish community in Eastern and Southern Europe as homelessness and hunger continue to mount.” He described the needs of Europe’s surviving Jews as “far greater” than they have ever been in modern history. Stressing that “these poor people are suffering the pangs of hopelessness and helplessness that defy description,” Mr. Lehman said that they “face a disastrous situation in the coming winter months” unless the relief, rehabilitation and resettlement programs of the United Jewish Appeal agencies are expanded to offset the reductions in intergovernmental relief programs.
HIGH HOLIDAYS WILL SEE SPECIAL CAMPAIGN; $105,000,000 SPENT IN 1947
In a nationwide radio broadcast over the American Broadcasting Company network today at 10 a.m., in connection with the conference, Mr. Morgenthau described the UJA campaign as “the instrument of hope and salvation for the homeless and the stressed among the Jewish people throughout the world and the foundation of the life-saving work in Europe, Palestine and the United States.”
Speaking over the weekly “Message of Israel” program, Mr. Morgenthau stated at during the forthcoming Jewish High Holy Days, beginning on Sunday evening, September 14, the Jews of America will observe “Ten Days of Remembrance” as part of a (##)tionwide mobilization to assure the reconstruction of Europe’s surviving Jews through the full attainment of the 1947 United Jewish Appeal quota.
Addressing the conference last night, Mr. Morgenthau disclosed that the UJA (##)encies spent more than $105,000,000 in Europe, Palestine and the United States since the beginning of 1947 to provide for the relief, rehabilitation and resettlement needs (##) 1,500,000 Jewish survivors of war and oppression overseas. The $105,00,000 figure,
MORGENTHAU SAYS SITUATION OF EUROPE’S JEWS WORSE THAN AT END OF WAR
“In many respects the situation of the Jews in Europe is worse than it was two years ago when there were no more than about 50,000 Jews in the D.P. camps as against 250,000 today,” he declared. “Those who manage to get to Palestine arrive in pitiful condition, without any means at all and very often without any clothes on their backs.” The UPA must have adequate resources to give the refugees who come to Palestine every opportunity to “take proper place in the constructive enterprise of building the Jewish homeland,” he continued. Mr. Morgenthau also pointed out that United Service for New Americans must expand its programs to provide for the needs of refugees who are entering the United States at the rate of 2,000 a month.
Mr. Rosenwald told the Jewish leaders that “the entire world is watching the United States for a cue in dealing with the refugee problem on a just and humans basis. If we give asylum to our fair share of the homeless,” he added, “other nations will be impelled to do the same. By providing for the wide geographic distribution of newcomers and their rapid adjustment to American life, the United Service for New Americans makes it possible for our country to keep its doors open.”
A prediction that the colony of European refugees who have been stranded in Shanghai since before World War II will be practically liquidated in 1948 was voiced by Mr. Rosenberg. “Shanghai will be the first major Jewish refugee problem to be cleared up completely since the end of the war,” he said. “Only the existence of the United Service program in this country is making that solution possible.” Refugees from Shanghai are now arriving at the rate of 1,000 a month, Mr. Rosenberg reported, making San Francisco a new “port of hope” for survivors of Nazi persecution.
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.
