Four hundred Jewish leaders, representing 19 major national Jewish organizations, joined today in an urgent call to the American Jewish community to rise to the “historic opportunity” afforded by the “great emigration of Jews from Eastern Europe” and make it “one of the momentous developments in contemporary Jewish history.”
The delegates adopted a declaration calling upon the constituencies and memberships of their organizations to give “maximum support” to the 1959 campaign of the United Jewish Appeal which is seeking to raise a special $100,000,000 emergency fund, over and above its regular campaign of more than $100,000,000, to finance the transport and resettlement of an expected 100,000 East European immigrants in Israel this year.
The delegates set up an ad hoc committee consisting of the presidents of the participating organizations to serve with the UJA in connection with this drive. Authorities, throughout the day-long session, had presented detailed reports on all aspects of the situation, the reactions to it, its impact on Israel and its significance to the American Jewish community.
FIGURE OF 100,000 IMMIGRANTS MAY BE “UNDER-ESTIMATE”
Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman, executive vice-chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, warned the conference that, while 100,000 Jews were expected to arrive in Israel this year, this figure could prove to be an “under-estimate of the reality.”
“This is no haphazard emigration,” Rabbi Friedman declared. “It is a departure of people yearning to live among their own. When the opportunity to leave comes to them, it is as though they had suddenly been given a ticket to heaven.” He reminded his hearers, however, that “we cannot give these East European Jews what they need unless we provide the necessary facilities in Israel. What will happen in this land which is struggling with the problems of absorption and consolidation of the earlier immigrants, which is still desperately short of housing, schools, facilities of every kind, if the people of Israel are called onto take in 100,000 or more newcomers–without our all-out aid?”
In a plea for “top priority giving” to meet the vast needs created by the new immigration the UJA executive declared: “If there is doubt in anyone’s mind as to the extent of these needs, I need only remind you of the simple but devastating arithmetic of the situation–that the costs of transporting the immigrants and getting them settled in Israel amount to a staggering twelve-to-fifteen-million dollars a month.”
RESCUE MAY RIVAL CREATION OF STATE IN IMPORTANCE–GOLDMANN
Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the Jewish Agency, who returned this week-end from consultations in Europe and Israel on the immigration situation, told the conference that Jews throughout the world have welcomed the movement of Jews from Eastern Europe.
“Poland, under Gomulka, was the first to breach the seal on the gates that barred Jewish emigration,” Dr. Goldmann declared. “Now the doors are opening in other Eastern European countries too. I cannot help discerning a pattern in all this that raises great hopes and creates a great challenge. This immigration to Israel, of multitudes long separated by force of circumstances from the mainstream of Jewish life, may yet become an event equal in importance to the creation of the State of Israel itself.”
Dr. Goldmann observed that the opening of East European doors obviously imposes a heavy burden on the people of Israel, but added: “It also imposes a tremendous obligation on the five million Jews of America, on whose financial assistance the new arrivals rely so heavily. But it is also an unprecedented opportunity.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir told the conference that the people of Israel, despite the hard pressures the new immigration would exert on them, were “determined to welcome all Jews who came to our shores.” She voiced confidence that Israel’s people, with the help of Jews abroad, “particularly the Jews of the United States,” could successfully cope with the challenge posed by the new immigration.
Terming American Jewry “our partners in the rescue and resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Jews from Europe and Moslem countries during the past decade,” Mrs. Meir affirmed that Israel could accommodate and sustain the increase in numbers the present influx would bring.
Mrs. Meir called attention to the great housing needs Israel faced even before the impact of the new immigration, and appealed to the conference members to take with them on their return to their local communities a “deep personal understanding of this vast human need.” Explaining that “your help is crucial,” Mrs. Meir urged her hearers to work with “redoubled energy” to raise the tremendous funds this situation demands.”
Ambassador Abba S. Eban told the conference that the influx of new citizens would bring “nothing but blessings to our nation and region.” He noted that with the new potentiality of agriculture, industry, irrigation, science, and technology “our country should be sustaining a larger population than now, within the framework of its complete fidelity to international justice and law.”
This “new opportunity,” he said, comes at a time when Israel’s international prestige is in constant ascent.” In America and Europe in Asia and Africa, there is “a growing appreciation of the special qualities inherent in our national progress.” Mr. Eban declared that the “massive infusion of aid and essential support Israel has received and is still receiving from the United States” is of inestimable importance. “But the task now before us is one which cries out for the helping hand of our Jewish brethren. It is fully within Israel’s capacity to absorb this influx, provided that these capacities are augmented, as they should be by a responsible Jewish solidarity.” he declared.
The participants in the conference, who also heard reports by Edward M. M. Warburg, honorary chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, and Morris W. Berinstein, its general chairman, represented the following organizations:
American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs, American Zionist Council, B’nai B’rith, Hadassah Jewish Agency for Israel, Jewish Labor Committee, Jewish War Veterans of the United States, Labor Zionist Assembly National Committee for Labor Israel, National Council of Jewish Women, National Council of Young Israel, Religious Zionist Movement Mizrachi-Hapoel Hamizrachi, United Roumanian Jews of America, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, United Synagogue of America, and Zionist Organization of America.
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.
