A total of 15,000 American servicemen in the Pacific Theater have signed a petition to President Truman urging that the doors of Palestine be opened to free Jewish immigration.
Sixty percent of the signatures on the petition, which is being circulated by the Servicemen’s Committee for a Jewish Palestine, have been obtained from Christian soldiers and sailors. In one engineer company 200 servicemen signed the petition, although only eight men in the unit were Jewish.
Pointing out that the signers fought to preserve “the principles of humanity and justice,” the petition requests that Jewish survivors of the Nazi terror be permitted to enter Palestine, “the only country willing and able to receive them.” Only in that country, the petition contiues, “can the grim specter of the concentration camp be lifted, and self-respect and dignity restored to a broken people.”
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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.