50,000 Jews from North Africa Expected in Israel During 1955

Immigration to Israel from North Africa on a scale reminiscent of the mass exodus of Jews from the displaced persons camps of Europe in the years immediately following the establishment of Israel in 1948, has already started and about 50,00 Jews will reach the Jewish State by the end of 1955, Mrs. Rose Halprin, the only woman member of the Jewish Agency executive, reported today at the annual mid-winter conference of Hadassah.

An important distinction existed between the mass immigration to Israel of European Jews of five and six years ago and the present movement of Jews from North Africa, Mrs. Halprin said. In the years between 1948 and 1951. Israel opened its doors to hundreds of thousands of European Jewish DP’s and Jews from Arab countries, regardless of age, physical and emotional handicaps, lack of vocational skills and poverty. During these four years Israel doubled its population by voluntarily assuming staggering economic and social burdens, thus retarding its own economic independence, she said.

The present mass movement from North Africa “has been organized more systematically and more selectively, “Mrs. Halprin stressed, with approximately 90 percent of the newcomers ticketed for Israel’s agricultural settlements and farms before they ascend the gangplanks of Israel-bound ships. “The newcomers from North Africa are prepared to go into agricultural work and show no disposition to crowd into the country’s larger cities,” she said.

Speaking at the conference last night, Dr. Kalman J. Mann, director of the Hadassah Medical Organization in Israel, said that Jews coming to Israel from Yemen are completely free of lung cancer and coronary thrombosis. While expressing no opinion on the reasons for the absence of these ailments among Yemenites, Dr. Mann noted that Jews from Yemen smoke narghiles-Oriental pipes in which tobacco smoke is drawn through water.

He said that during the last ten years the Hadassah Medical Organization has treated 450 persons with coronary thrombosis. Of these only two could be classified as Yemenites, and in each instance the patient had lived in Israel, rather than his native country, for more than 30 years. On the other hand, Dr. Mann said, Yemenites are twice as susceptible to lung tuberculosis, and have twice the mortality rate from this disease as the remainder of the Israel population.

Dr. Miriam Freund, chairman of the Hadassah Youth Aliyah Committee, told the Hadassah conference today that Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt had undertaken to inspect facilities for the rehabilitation and resettlement of Jewish children from all parts of the world in Israel. Mrs. Roosevelt will leave for Israel on March 3.