A Hebrew University psychiatrist said here last night that Jewish survivors of the Nazi holocaust who had emigrated to Israel have shown a “relatively painless vocational and social adjustment.”
Speaking at a conference on social psychiatry, organized by the Joint Distribution Committee, Prof. H.Z. Winnick of the Hebrew University Medical School, said such newcomers have managed to function socially despite clinical evidence, obtained after their arrival, that fewer than five percent of them were free of psychosomatic complaints.
Prof. Otto Klineberg of the Sorbonne told the meeting that the mental health of the Jewish immigrants was largely dependent on the degree to which the whole society accepted the principle of pluralism and the degree of prejudice and discrimination characteristic of that society. Mrs. Phyllis Palgi, an anthropologist in the Israeli Health Ministry, said that the immigrants to Israel from Eastern Europe and North African nations had shown “remarkable progress” in integration.
The conference was organized by the JDC, in cooperation with the International Council on Jewish Social and Welfare Services and the World Federation for Mental Health, because of the unusually high incidence of emotional disorders among the Jewish Nazi victims and refugees served by the JDC.
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.
