Alliance Israelite Universelle Refutes Claim It is Indifferent to Palestine by Pointing to Its Trade

The Central Committee of the Alliance Israelite Universelle has just published its annual report, some of the salient features of which are given below.

Answering the claim that the Alliance has been indifferent to Eretz Yisrael, the report says:

“We need only point to our chain of primary schools, of trade schools, and to our agricultural school, from whom have gone forth several generation of pupils who have been trained and re-educated and who are the living testimony of the value of our work of emancipation and fraternity there.”

Reporting on Jewish conditions in Poland, Hungary and Roumania, the report finds that they have during the past year been bad in an extreme degree. The report notes that special taxes are levied upon certain groups in such manner as to particularly affect the Jew, that Jewish students are shut out from the technical schools and colleges and that government positions are systematically closed to Jews. The Alliance has interceded several times with the League of Nations on behalf of these Jews, but because of delicate political matters involved such action has seldom borne fruit.

The Alliance has aided Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, who have come to France. Numerous organizations have been formed to help the newcomers. An employment committee is being subsidized by the Alliance in Paris, as well as courses in French for adult immigrants.

The Alliance has aided Jewish colonization in Russia and has at the same time protested against religious persecutions there. After the August massacres in Palestine it helped raise two and one-half million francs in France for relief purposes. Together with other Jewish organizations of Europe it collected funds to aid the Jews of Bessarabia, who were suffering from famine.

In Morocco new schools have been opened by the Alliance in places in the interior with large Jewish population who had never had any contact with modern civilization. In this work it has been aided by the government authorities there.

In Palestine the Alliance now has a trade school with six shops, a boys school with 910 pupils and a girls school with 400 pupils. In Jaffa it has just completed arrangements that will bring the school population up to 1,300 pupils; at Haifa. thanks to the donation of a generous friend, it is this year putting up a school center to house from 800 to 900 pupils. It is counteracting missionary activities in Palestine by taking special care of Jewish children who have attended missionary schools. The Alliance Agricultural School at Haifa is a model institution.